Yves J. Bellanger

THE 5TH INFANTRY DIVISION

"RED DIAMOND"

 5th ID Patch

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