Yves J. Bellanger
THE 5TH INFANTRY DIVISION
"RED DIAMOND"
THE DRIVE BEGINS
The 5th was taken out of the First
Army of Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley and assigned as the
early nucleus of the just forming Third Army under Lieutenant
General George S. Patton, Jr., on the 4th of August.
Then began the 5th's odyssey across
France. For the first move of 55 miles six Quartermaster Truck
Companies were furnished. Thereafter the number of trucks dwindled
daily and the division moved on its organic transportation. With
its own organic 735th Tank Battalion and 818th Tank Destroyer
Battalion * as the armored element, the division developed the
mobility and speed of an armored division with added advantage
of three regiments of infantry to make river crossing, hold ground
and root out dug-in enemy infantry with the flexible fire power
of the Infantry Division Artillery.
The armored divisions were organically
equipped to strike swiftly across France in the hot, dusty days
of August 1944. The infantry division had to improvise and sacrifice
to keep pace. The 5th did both so well that it was able to outstrip
the armor. In its advance the 5th was never preceded by armor
on its route except on 31 August, when three tanks of the 7th
Armored Division beat the Red Diamond into Verdun by a nose.
To maintain a pace of fifty to ninety
miles a day, the infantry regiments dropped their kitchens and
all but bare essentials in storage places and fought and traveled
for 25 days on K rations as it was necessary to use the kitchen
and supply trucks for hauling troops. The K ration was a good
one, but it got a little monotonous after a while and cheese became
a subject of frequent rebellious vituperation. You couldn't even
give it to the French as "fromage" was one thing they
had plenty of.
Doughboys rode perched on everything
mobile except each other. They clung eight to ten on a medium
tank and twelve to fourteen on an M10 Tank Destroyer. They jammed
on artillery prime movers and engineer, medical and quartermaster
trucks. They rode four or five to a jeep and two to jeep trailers
though sun, rain, mud, dust, flowers, cognac and calvados.
The Red Diamond headed west out of
the St Lo area to Coutances, turned south and passed through Avranches.
Ahead of the columns of troops flew the Air Corps. Thunderbolts
and Mustangs strafing all German traffic on the road and bombing
so that Germans were thrown into disorganization and chaos. The
planes left their landmarks on burned out tanks, cars, trucks
and dead livestock along the highways. Continuing south, the division
headed toward Nantes, sending a Task Force of the 1st Bn, 2nd
Infantry with attachments to vicinity northwest of Nantes with
the mission of blocking routes to the north and east and containing
any force encountered. That was on 8 August .
At noon on 7 August the division had
been ordered to seize the large city of Angers and its bridges
across the Maine and Loire rivers. The assignment was given to
the 11th Combat Team which left vicinity of Vitré at 1400
hours for Angers, 60 miles east. Angers, population upwards of
80,000, located at the junction of the Maine and Loire rivers,
was the first really large city in France to be attacked and liberated
by Allies.
A Task Force composed of a platoon of tanks, and a company of
infantry with attachments,
under Lt. Col. D. W. Thackeray, division staff officer, left Vitré
the afternoon of the 7th with mission of traveling north parallel
to the 11th CT and passing north then east of Angers to attempt
to seize the bridge south of Angers and Les Ponts de Cé.
All bridges over the Mayenne river were found blown however, and
progress was impossible.
* Tank Battalion and Tank Destroyer Battalion are not
organic (assigned) but attached to the division. The attachment
to the division changed during the war.
Pages 9 and 11 of the History booklet
of the 5th Infantry Division, published at Metz, France,
in December 1944.
Thanks to Lester Cormicle for his help in the transcription of
the booklet.
The story continues in Battle
of Angers page.
Action at Angers
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Created in July 2001
Updated July 18, 2001 by Yves
J. Bellanger