Plymouth England, Saint-Lo
During the whole month, the front had moved only 12 miles from the beach. But Simon wasn’t complaining. In fact, everyone considered himself lucky to be disembarking when they did. They were able to get off the ship with their equipment onto a barge that was created from a metal webbing (used at the time to reinforce dirt runways for heavy aircraft) that was attached to the top of 50-gallon empty oil drums all neatly tied together. One of the companies had to move their Jeeps and other equipment through the water, but about half of them stalled and had to be pulled out, even though they had been heavily waterproofed.
The first piece of equipment placed on this makeshift barge was a derrick—which was placed right in the middle of the barge. It appeared to Simon that the derrick was so heavy it would go right through the barge and sink out of sight--but it held--then the Jeeps were placed around the derrick. Finally, the officers ordered the soldiers to “Climb down and get on your Jeeps." Everyone did as they were ordered and got on their Jeeps and the barge held! They unloaded right from the barge to a dock that was also made out of oil barrels. As Simon moved across the dock in his Jeep, the barrels would sink from the weight and it felt like the Jeep was going uphill all the time. Eventually they were on dry land and got a chance to review the damage from the fighting. There was damage everywhere to everything. Boats and trucks and anything you could imagine being part of a military operation of that size was lying in huge piles. Some of the equipment was still burning and some of the stuff was being burned to just get rid of it. The occasional body floating in the water added to making this scene even more grisly.
Most of the equipment was so badly damaged that it was just shoved it out of the way with a bulldozer so the troops that followed could get through. Imagine a boat or a truck that destroyed by an artillery shell in the ocean. The waves would crash against the debris and move it in and out with the tides. The action of the waves would release some of the carnage that was part of D-Day and a new body would wash ashore. Eventually, Simon’s company was able to move beyond the deep sand of the beach to climb the imposing hills and cliffs to dry land. What made it easier for the new arrivals was a road carved by a bulldozer through the cliffs. It was almost impossible to imagine anyone making the climb under fire. Especially when there were concrete bunkers (pill boxes) at the top of these cliffs. Even though the front had moved 12 miles away from the beach there was still firing on the beach because some of the long distance guns had the capability of reaching that far.
Beyond the beach, around the small towns there were concrete barricades that served as fences for the French, but were ideal hiding places for the Germans. These barricades were along the roads and close to the houses. You never knew if a German tank or armored car was hiding within range of their weapons. After traveling a short while they started to experience small arms fire. After arriving in one of the first small towns the first day the orders came to remove the cosmolene that they had so carefully applied at Land’s End, and take the intake and exhaust stacks off the vehicles. Although they did their best, it was almost impossible to get it all off and some of it remained on the Jeep Simon drove throughout the war until the war was over.
Further from the coast in the area known as the Contentin Peninsula, Simon’s company encountered hedgerows that were not really hedgerows, but big piles of dirt–they were just called hedgerows. The bottom was 15 to 25 feet wide and they stood approximately 8 to 10 feet tall comprised mostly of dirt but also trees and other vegetation that had grown on them. Each field was no more than one to three acres with a hedgerow surrounding each field, with a rare road in between the fields. The enemy used these hedgerows to their advantage. At one point Simon was driving the company commander, a captain through the hedgerows back and unknown to them all the back and forth required by the hedgerows forced the convoy to go over a pressure mine which operates on the principle of increased pressure. As each jeep ran over the mine the pressure would increase until it exploded with such a force that it tore the Jeep to pieces and even bent the 50-caliber machine gun barrel on top of the Jeep. All four soldiers in the Jeep were killed. It wasn’t long after that the Army started probing the roads for mines—something they hadn’t done up until that time.
The two weapons that Simon originally carried with him in the Jeep were an M1 carbine—his personal weapon--and a grease gun. A grease gun was a $8.50 submachine gun that the Army made for the soldiers. The stock that pulled out was comprised of two pieces of wire, the trigger was in a pistol grip and the clip was near the front of the gun. To fire the weapon a soldier would grip the pistol grip and the clip in each hand, and rest the wire stock on the shoulder. The barrel was 10 or 12 inches long and if you knew how to handle it, a soldier could be fairly accurate. If you didn’t know how to handle it and you hung on to it tightly, the first bullet might be close to where you were shooting, but the next series of bullets went up in the air. The recoil would force the gun straight up. The only way to be accurate was to fire a single shot, or as one of the marksmen in Simon’s company was able to demonstrate, just let the gun bounce without hanging on to it tightly. They were designed for throwing 45 caliber lead, not accuracy. The German equivalent, a machine pistol, that was also called a "burp gun" was powerful and accurate. It looked like a Thompson machine gun with a slightly longer barrel and a clip. Every time that Simon heard a burp gun fire, the hair on the back of his head would raise up. The tankers (tank crews) all had Thompson submachine guns – their personal weapons.
Later on Simon found a German Browning pistol (not a revolver, complete with Swastika) that shot 13 rounds of 9MM ammo. He made a shoulder holster for it and I carried that him at all times. He really wanted Lueger or a P38 which was heavier than the Lueger but was more accurate and easier to shoot. But he wasn’t able to get either one. For a time had an Italian rifle, a very nice little gun, but one day he had to go someplace in very big hurry. The gun was in a little rack in the back of the Jeep. Until, that is, Simon hit a huge bump and the rifle flew out of the Jeep. Simon was going too fast to go back and get it.
While in the hedgerows Simon also carried four pounds of TNT that he used to blow holes through the hedge rows. The caps for the TNT were in the glove compartment. He also had hand grenades laying on the floor, and had a whole box of ammunition for the pistol. While this provided some security if he had ever been pinned down, if a shell had hit all this ammo they wouldn't have been able to find parts of the Jeep, much less Simon. Another weapon was the way in which the jeep was outfitted with a wire cutter. The wire cutter was a piece of angle iron that was bolted to the front of the Jeep and extended about 5 ft. in the air and was bent to the front. The enemy used to string very thin but strong concertina wire across the road and when the vehicle was in motion, the wire couldn’t be seen. It was placed at just the right height to catch an individual in the neck. So the wire cutter was positioned in such a way that if hit a section of concertina wire, it would cut the wire before it got to the driver.
A soldier never really owned his weapon, and sometimes it was necessary to “borrow” other weapons. In one instance a soldier came up to Simon and said, "I lost my rifle. I can't find my rifle." So Simon jerked his off the Jeep and said, "Here, this is yours." And then a little while later, Simon found another rifle. Weapons were just laying all over the place, unfortunately. If you needed a weapon some would just take it off a dead soldier and keep on going. That's the way it was.