Old Hickory Recon, Memories of the 30th Infantry Division 1943-1945 - Marion M. Sanford

Posted by Slipdigit for Old Hickory

We stayed there until the first of August. They pulled us out of the line. We got our first shower since we’d been there [51 days]. We went into one end of a big tent, stripped off, they sprayed us so lice and whatever else might be on us would come off and then we took a shower. We went out the other end and got brand new clothes. Without a doubt, that was the best shower I’ve ever had in my life!

Normandy was a bad time in a lot of ways. They had a good bit of rain and mud. The first piece of bread we got, we were eating K-rations, was about 7 weeks after we got there. They came by and gave everybody a loaf of bread. I ate mine that night. We did not have a kitchen set up for our outfit. We had a little ole gasoline Coleman stove in each vehicle and that’s what we cooked with. We made it through to the first of August. We had a few days rest. [He told me in a phone conversation that his unit had a kitchen attached, but after they left Sough, they did not see the kitchen until the war ended.]

My division of 16,000 men lost over 5000 at that time. We were short, we needed replacements. They removed the 1st Infantry division and put us in the line in a place called Mortain. We were going to hold the line there. The Germans decided they would counterattack with everything they had available. They were going to Avranches to cut us in two. Patton had gone into Brittany and was moving pretty well.

We were attacked. We had the higher ground on one hill [Hill 314]. The 120 Infantry had a battalion on this hill. For 5 ½ days they were surrounded. We kept hearing that we were surrounded. Well, we were on the other side of the hill holding a road block and we didn’t see a German the whole time.

The 120th lost over half their men. There were more than 500 men and more than 300 didn’t walk off of that hill. They did one of the most heroic things. The Germans knew that they could not come up that hill in day time because of our artillery. They were coming at night.

Our guys dug foxholes in the middle of the road. When a tank would come up at night, a man would jump out and try to get a hand grenade down in the tank. They knocked out tanks and piled that road up where the Germans couldn’t come up that hill because it was the only road there. That lasted for 5 ½ days.

During that time, 2 German SS came up and asked us to surrender. This Lt said he would surrender when all his bullets were gone and his bayonets were sticking in one of their bellies. They didn’t like that much, but they went back but they never took the hill.

One 2nd Lt, [Robert Weiss,] who was our artillery director wrote a book, Enemy North, South, East, and West . It’s a pretty good book. [Slipdigit- I’ve read the book too, it is very good. Lt. Weiss' book is now available under the title Fire Mission]

Finally the battle of Mortain was over, the Germans were trying to retreat. We moved around for several days. We thought we were going to Paris, but command didn’t have any intension of going there.

We were going through some woods on unpaved, sorry roads and came upon a church. About 5 vehicles of us stopped and we got a call that a German command car was coming up that road. It didn’t hardly come out of their mouth when here it came with 4 men in it. He came by and shot one blast at us. A man standing close to me said, “I’m hit! I’m hit!” He pulled his hand away from his chest and he had a red mark where a bullet had gone across his body. It really didn’t hit him, it just burned him.

As that vehicle went by, everybody shot at it. The vehicle went a little way before it turned over. We counted way over 200 holes in it. Only 1 of the 4 men was hit, nobody else was, and he was hit in the leg. We captured the 4 men.

 

Thanks slipdigit, makes a lot of sense.

 

That was one lucky German officer! You would expect him and his entourge blown to Swisscheese after 200 rounds of 30-06.

 

Hi Old Hickory. Pleasure to read your post. Thank you for sharing.

We live close to St Jean de Daye in Normandy and drive through the village daily, rebuilt, it's hard for us to imagine what you went through, but we thank you and your comrades.

Just north of St Jean de Daye, a house was used as some sort of field hospital/medical centre after the landings. Do you have any recollection of such a place? We are told it was taken from the Germans (most likely SS) by the allies.

Kindest regards and our very best wishes.

 

Thank you Slipdigit for the transcribe and Great Respect to Old Hickory, both for what he did back then, and for sharing his memories. If he revisited England he would find many changes but also much the same. We still like to visit the pub but the beer chillers mean we no longer drink warm beer and Coors,Miller and Budwieser are readily available, as is roast chicken and beef steaks. Perhaps I can give a little in return.

Lady Astor's place is Hever Castle, it is beautiful with large grounds. I have visited it and you can see it now at www.HeverCastle.com.

Chickster is more problematic. Time can play games with places.

Chester is a large town in the region of Liverpool but further than 15 miles. It has lots of black and white timbered buildings.Perhaps he can remember those, mind you they are all over the place.
Chichester is in the southwest of England not far from Southamton the port of embarkation for Oldhickory on his way to conquer Europe.Pre Invasion this area was a mass of troops and equipment. I hope to visit this area again in two weeks time.

It would be likely that OldHickory may have visited both of these towns.

Slough is now a very large town with easy motorway and rail access to London.

Windsor Castle is home to H.M Queen Elizabeth a place full of tourists and the hill is still there.

Kind Regard..richard s. a resident of Herefordshire, England and probably another place OldHickory passed through on his travels.

 

www.30thinfantry.org

Found this site while digging around. It may help to place Old Hickorys memories in context for those who, like me , have only read lightweight books about D Day.
MS Word files wont open for me but I'm working on that.
Still looking for more information on their stay in England. Gives me a reason for surfing the web in the hope I can find a few gold nuggets.

Regards ...richard s.

Looks like FieldHospital beat me to the site. Good One.

 

Old Hickory remembers the construction of the houses well. Still standing and still lived in. Tiled roof now though.

The church for St Jean de Daye is near the town square. Not sure if same one?

May I ask: What div of the 30th did Old Hickory serve in? rank? age then? do you have a pic of yourself at that time, which you could post here? Apol if these answered and I have missed them.

From another angle: does Old Hickory remember anything about a large manor house/small chateau which was used as some sort of HQ by the Germans? It's position would have had value to both sides. This property was again just north of St Jean de Daye, set back off the road. Maybe Old Hickory didn't come in to St Jean de Daye from that direction, coming instead from the direction of St Fromond after crossing the Vire river?

For Old Hickory, I've attached 2 (then and now) pics of St Jean de Daye town square, and one of the war memorial.

1: 26th July 1944
2: Same view, pic taken by me yesterday - 8th June 2009
3: War Memorial, pic taken by me yesterday - 8th June 2009

Kindest regards and thank you.

 

Posted by Slipdigit for Old Hickory.

It was decided that we would form a task force to go across northern France. General Harrison commanded every task force we’d been on and he commanded this one. It took us seventy-two hours to go from Normandy to Belgium.

That was one of the saddest days that I had while I was over there. We were chasing the Germans, they were trying to retreat. They had a lot of horse drawn artillery they were trying to get out of France back to Germany. There were dead horses, dead Germans, dead everything. We went by one place where, over a mile, where the German armor was bumper to bumper. Our Air Force had destroyed that armor. Gen Eisenhower said that you could not walk down there without stepping on a dead German.

When we went in that evening, I stood up in the back of the halftrack and as far as I could, there was nothing but fires burning. We were moving and didn’t stop. I thought to myself, “What in the world?” There was more destruction that I ever thought there’d be. We went on through northern France, capturing Germans along the way, turning them over to the free French.

We went into Belgium on the 2nd day of September. We went inside a crossroads and lost 6 men. There was a German anti-aircraft outfit with 20mm cannons. They fired direct fire. They killed 3 men, Lt. Hallman, Sgt Scott and a man of lower rank. Sgt Scott was the best soldier I’ve ever known. They wounded 3 men, the Commanding Officer, and two other men. Out of the 149 enlisted men and 6 officers, we had 135 total. We were short.

By that time, there was no gasoline. The infantry had been brought up there on trucks. They didn’t have gasoline to haul them, but they had gasoline for the recon.

In the meantime, we had captured a German payroll. It was 3 suitcases full of money. We put a suitcase in 3 different vehicles, because we thought one would get hit and burn, which it did and we lost one suit case of the money. All of this money was thousand franc notes that were worth about $22.

I needed a haircut badly. We’d stopped in a small village in Belgium and I was sitting there when I said that I was going to get this lady to give me a haircut. I went in there and got a haircut. When I got through, I gave her that 1000 franc note and she like to have fainted. She tried to give me change and I told her to keep it. I thought sure that she was going to faint.


One night during this time, we were going through there we stopped at a crossroads where there was a pretty good sized café. They were cooking eggs for us. At eleven o’clock, they said they had to close up. They had orders they had to close up. Somebody said, “Why don’t we buy the thing?”

We asked them how much they’d take for it that night. We worked out some kind of a deal and we paid them off. We spent the night and they cooked for us all night. The next day, we gave it back to them but we took everything out of that café that we wanted, most of it something to drink.

 

30th Recon were certainly the quiet men when it came to recounting their history.Trawling the web for them is hard work.
I have found a site contaning a mimeographed copy of the "Recon Beacon" 20th ,Febuary'43 Camp Blanding, Fla which I hope is of interest.

www.oldhickory30th.com

I am learning a lot about US Recon. Please say if you find my digging intrusive.I tend to get carried away when I find something this interesting.

I have just checked my link and there is a whole lot more to it . I will get the hang of this computer lark one day.

On the above mentioned site look for Reports. On the first page you will find the Recon Beacon and 30th Recon ThanksGiving Menu 1943, Camp Atterbury. Indiana.
If you look at the list Tech. Grade V you will find the name Sanford, Marion.
Should this be our member Old Hickory I will be cock-a-hoop. (My stomach is doing flip flops with excitement).Then again he may already be aware this site and its contents.

 

Slip, in regards to saving the stories for his grand children, i know the cost may not be something he would want to do, but you should see maybe about getting his stories bound. maybe a local book store would know where you could get it done, where i used to live we had a book press nearby but like i said i dont know how rates are.

 

I took a look at the church at St Jean de Daye this morning. It is in the middle of the town, next to the sqaure as shown on the pictures I posted, above. An old Norman church, I think it is very likely to be the one mentioned by Old Hickory. There is indeed a sort of courtyard area to the front. Quite a large space. There are no other churches except for those in the other village/town centres, so I believe it to be the same one, and therefore would have been the collection station for US soldiers who had been killed as mentioned by Old Hickory. It is not near the temp hospital though, which was situated a little more outside the town (which makes sense).

I tried to get a photo of the church for Old Hickory but the sun was behind the spire so it was just one large silhouette. Will try again another day and post it here.

Well done rhs for finding that info on the other site. My research is purely to find out the history of a local property here, but it is nice to put a name and hopefully one day a face to someone who passed this way.

And thanks to slipdigit and old hickory for doing the post in the first place, it turns out two regiments of the 30th actually camped up right by the place I am researching. So much to tell.... but that is another story......

Regards.

 

Old Hickory, I've found this, I think you may be thinking of these:

COMMAND POSTS 1944:

22 Feb: Liverpool - Lancashire, England
24 Feb: Chichester (Chichester Barracks) - Sussex, England
01 Apr: Chesham - Buckinghamshire, England

Should be easy enough now for Slipdigit to find on the map. Chichester would also put you in the vicinity of Hever Castle.

In France, was Old Hickory at Montmartin en Graignes too?

Regards.