Roving Reporter
By Ernie Pyle
In Normandy, France – (by wireless)
A few days after D-Day, you may remember we spoke in this column of five early phases of the continental invasion that would have to take place.
Phase No. 5 was to be the break out from our beachhead after we’d held it secure long enough to build up vast quantities of troops and supplies behind us. And once we’d broken out of the ring of Germans trying to hold us in and completed Phase 5, the real war in Western Europe would begin.
Well, we’re in Phase 5 now. At least we are while I’m writing this. Things are moving swiftly. You realize that several days elapse between the writing and the publication of this column. By the time you read this we may be out in the open and pushing into France.
Surely history will give a name to the battle that sent us boiling out of Normandy – some name comparable to Saint-Mihiel, or Meuse-Argonne of the last war. But to us here on the spot at the time it was known simply as “the breakthrough.”
We correspondents could sense that a big drive was coming. There are many little ways you can tell without actually being told, if you are experienced in war.
And then one evening Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley, commanding all American troops in France, came to our camp and briefed us on the coming operation. It would start, he said, on the first day we had three hours good living weather in the forenoon.
Glad of news
We were all glad to hear the news. There isn’t a correspondent over here, or soldier, or officer I ever heard of who hasn’t complete and utter faith in Gen. Bradley. If he felt we were ready for the push, that was good enough for us.
The general told us the attack would cover a segment of the German line west of Saint-Lô, about five miles wide In that narrow segment we would have three infantry divisions, side by side. Right behind them would be another infantry and two armored divisions.
Once a hole was broken, the armored divisions would slam through several miles beyond, then turn right toward the sea behind the Germans in that sector in the hope of cutting them off and trapping them.
Keep pressure on
The remainder of our line on both sides of the attack would keep the pressure on to hold the Germans in front of them so they couldn’t send reinforcements against our big attack.
The attack was to open with a gigantic two-hour air bombardment by 1,800 planes – the biggest. I’m sure, ever attempted by air in direct support of ground troops.
It would start with dive bombers, then great four-motored heavies would come, and then mediums, then dive bombers again, and then the ground troops would kick off, with air fighters continuing to work ahead of them.
It was a thrilling plan to listen to. Gen. Bradley didn’t tell us the big thing – that this was Phase 5. But other officers gave us the word. They said, “This is no limited objective drive. This is it. This is the big breakthrough.”
In war, everybody contributes something, no matter how small or how far removed he may be. But on the frontline, this breakthrough was accomplished by four fighting branches of the services and I don’t see truly how one could be given credit above another.
None of the four could have done the job without the other three. The way they worked together was beautiful and precision-like, showering credit upon themselves and Gen. Bradley’s planning.
Goes with infantry
I went with the infantry because it is my love, and because I suspected the tanks, being spectacular, might smother the credit, due the infantry. I teamed up with the 4th Infantry Division since it was in the middle of the forward three and spearheading the attack.
The first night behind the frontlines I slept comfortably on a cot in a tent at the division command post, and met for the first time the Fourth’s commander – Maj. Gen. Raymond O. Barton, a fatherly kindly, thoughtful, good soldier.
The second night I spent on the dirty floor of a rickety French farmhouse, far up in the lines, with the nauseating odor of dead cows keeping me awake half the night.
The third night I slept on the ground in an orchard even farther up. snugly dug in behind a hedgerow so the 88s couldn’t get at me so easily. And on the next day the weather cleared, and the attack was on. It was July 25.
If you don’t have July 25 pasted in your hat, I would advise you to do so immediately. At least paste it in your mind. For I have a hunch that July 25 of the year 1944 will be one of the great historic pinnacles of this war.
It was the day we began a mighty surge out of our confined Normandy spaces, the day we stopped calling our area the beachhead, and knew we were fighting a war across the whole expanse of Europe.
On final victory move
From that day onward all dread possibilities and fears for disaster to our invasion were behind us. No longer was there any possibility of our getting kicked off. No longer could it be possible for fate, or weather, or enemy to wound us fatally; from that day onward, the future could hold nothing for us but growing strength and eventual victory.
For five days and nights during that historic period I stayed at the front with our troops. And now, though it’s slightly delayed, I want to tell you about it in detail from day to day, if you will be that patient.
