WW2 Vet George Perrine's Story PART 3
PART 3 FORWARD:
We were lucky enough to meet this fine fellow - George Perrine, United States Army, 2nd Armored Division – on D-Day 70th anniversary, 2014. He is sharing his story, in his own words, of his time during the war.
It is a long tale so we will be posting it over a few days so look for the rest of the story.
By George Perrine
"Operation Cobra” began with a carpet bombing of the breakthrough area on July 25th. Infantry division attacked to open the way through the German front line. We were committed to follow through the breach in the German front and drive south and south-west “As far as you can, as fast as you can” Our objective was to reach the Seinne River, secure the bridges or destroy the, then take up blocking positions to deny the enemy the crossing sites, ad stopping any attempt the Germans to break out the pocket we had created.
The advance continued during the night, and the next day the remaining river crossings were secured. It’s one thing to take your objective and another to hold it, especially if you have a trapped enemy and he wishes to escape.
Some broke through our positions but most did not. Those that broke through escaped on foot without their equipment, tanks, artillery, and transport vehicles.
On August 1, we were scouting out a route south toward Mortain. We were out of the major hedgerow country but in forested area. After outflanking roadblocks, either killing or capturing the defenders we broke into fairly open country again. This was very time consuming, and we had casualties of men and equipment.
My worst day of combat was August 8th, 1944. We had entered combat July 26th and were continually in action except for two days’ rest. Our new objective was to reconnoiter a route to Barenton by way of Mortain. Intelligence reported that our infantry had captured Mortain but we might receive sniper fire in town but push on through to Barenton. Sounded good, but in the meantime a major German attack had recaptured Mortain.
We moved out immediately and by dawn we were approaching Mortain. There was a heavy ground fog and visibility was limited so we did not see the Germans and they did not see us. Consequently, we were in the town before we were fired upon by heavy small arms fire. Only two armored cars and four jeeps proceeded into the town. The next vehicle in line was our assault gun, which took up firing position to cover our advance.
Three of the jeeps were knocked out immediately. The armored cars and one jeep continued into town until the street was blocked by a building blown into the street. This was a very narrow street with no room to turn around.
There was a garage on the right side of the street. By pulling one vehicle at a time into the garage and backed in out on the street we turned the three vehicles so we were headed back the way we came in.
My armored car was point car coming in so we turned around first and backed up the street permitting the other vehicles to turn around. That made my car the last one coming out. We squeezed the jeep past one armored car putting it between the two armored cars hoping to afford some protection. We were under small arms fire but managed to hold off any serious attempt to overrun our position. We were ready to attempt a breakout
Six vehicles and 27 men advanced to enter Mortain. Three vehicles and 15 men got into the main part of town. Only two vehicles, both armored cars, escaped, but 14 men came out in or on those cars. The one missing man was one of the new replacements and I have never discovered his name.
In this action, we had one man killed, two missing and eight wounded. Equipment loses were four jeeps destroyed and two badly battered armored cars. All equipment strapped to the outside of the cars was destroyed. My car had five flat tires but they were thick walled combat tires and could be run many miles while flat.
When we bivouacked for the night, we found ourselves in the middle of a concentration of our artillery. Obviously, the Germans had already located this target and proceeded to bomb it. We were right in the middle of firing batteries and received our fair share of the bomb load. I do not know the damage done to the artillery, but we sure lost our supply half-track that carried two 60 mm mortars with their crews, extra ammo, rations, and gasoline. Having our spare gasoline, ammo, etc, on board, it burned brightly and it exploded for several hours.
It made a great aiming point for the bomber and I feel sure they used it as such. Fortunately we had only two men from the platoon slightly wounded. They did not require evacuation. It had been a bad day.
Continued: Excerpt from next chapter – “After Fourteen days with a two day break, I came to the conclusion that war can get your hurt!”
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