Bloody Sunday

Company A of the 110th Medical Battalion was the collecting company for the 134th Infantry Regiment, 35th Infantry Division. Companies B & C serviced the 137th & 320th regiments, while Company D was the Clearing Company, serving the entire division. The worst day of the war for Company A may very well have been July 30, 1944. Known to those who fought there as “Bloody Sunday,” two of Company A lost their lives that day in the line of duty. They were Private Joseph Toth of Alpha, NJ, and PFC Chester Zaleski of Sayreville, NJ. In addition, several other members of Company A were wounded that day.

The fighting around Torigni-sur-Vire on July 30, 1944 will forever be known as Bloody Sunday.

The companies jumped off at 9 o’clock, but the German withdrawal pattern had been altered: there were immediate bursts of hostile fire all along the line. The enemy added artillery to his small arms fire. What made the situation immediately worse was the relative compactness of the Battalion’s formation. It had not even had an opportunity to deploy fully from its compact wagon-wheel formation which it had taken up for night security. This meant that the Battalion CP was only about one hedgerow in rear of the frontline, and the aid station and other headquarters personnel were only the distance of a small orchard to the left rear — across the road. Nearly the whole Battalion, therefore, was under fire when any great volume was directed against it.

An hour and a half later the situation had not improved. “K” and “L” Companies unable to advance, Colonel Thomsen sent Company “I” around to attack on the left of “L”; but there was no flank and “I” was under fire before it even came abreast. All companies were suffering casualties, and were gaining nothing. Artillery fire had cut telephone lines, and communications between Battalion and Regiment broke.

At the Battalion CP the medics were busy. A litter team was lifting the battalion clerk from his foxhole onto their litter; he had painful wounds in his arm and thigh. Someone lit a cigarette for him, and he thanked them cheerfully as he was carried away. Lieutenant Garner was hit — wounded seriously. A company runner, eyes closed, sat stiffly in a fox hole where a shell had killed him. The tank officer who had come up to coordinate was in a hole nearby, and he got hit; Captain Carroll had gone up to see Colonel Thomsen, and the S-2 had gone back to regimental headquarters; Pfc. Johnson was the only one there who did not get hit.

Meanwhile the companies were trying hard to advance. Company K was still on the right, and trying to make the next hedgerow. Technical Sergeant Paul Forney of Nebraska, platoon sergeant, had found himself in command of his platoon where the lieutenant had been hit. He led the platoon out across the orchard toward the next hedgerow. Moving through enemy fire, Forney was wounded; but he kept right on going to throw his hand grenades over the next hedgerow. He rallied his men to continue the assault, but the next burst of fire killed him.

Pfc. Edward Abraham of Ohio was a little more fortunate. When his platoon was pinned down by an enemy machine gun, he leaped over the hedgerow, and although wounded, crawled down near the German gun and destroyed the crew with a hand grenade.

Four automatic riflemen were wounded in quick succession at a vital position protecting the left flank of Company L’s 2nd Platoon. Immediately Pfc. Luverne Stroud of Minnesota and Robert Hanlon of Washington D.C. ran up to take over a BAR. They opened fire, and kept the weapon going until a direct hit from an enemy mortar killed both of them.

Over in Company I one platoon had been able to drive a short gain, but heavy fire from front and flank forced it to give this up. Technical Sergeant Leonard Osiek of Ohio, the platoon sergeant, grabbed a light machine gun to cover the withdrawal of his platoon. He remained in position until all the members of his platoon had taken cover behind the hedgerow to the rear. Then, firing the machine gun from his hip, he walked backwards until he reached the hedgerow. But as he started to climb over, enemy fire killed him.

Colonel Thomsen was becoming worried over the battalion’s situation. Tanks were coming up; they were able to cross the railroad over a grade crossing about a half mile to the west of the knocked out overpass, but the sunken road which ran parallel to the railroad was too narrow for them in some places, and there it was necessary for pioneer demolition crews to blast openings in the hedgerow. All of this was taking time, and in the meantime the accurate enemy fire was sapping the Battalion’s strength. The battalion commander was hoping that Colonel Miltonberger would commit the Second Battalion which was being held in regimental reserve. To this Colonel Miltonberger readily agreed when he saw the gravity of the situation. However, the commander of the 2nd battalion had been wounded in the previous night’s bombing attack, and now the executive officer was near nervous exhaustion; it was not until Captain Carroll, after repeated trips, got hold of the S-3, Captain Frederick Roecker, a young West Pointer from Washington, that he was able to get any action.

A long whistle announced the approach of another shell. It burst on a barn. Splinters of wood, timber fragments, smoke and dust rose high into the air. Members of the pioneer platoon came running out of the old building; several were injured — Lieutenant Hall had a gash in his hand. Already motor personnel, Pioneers, and others, had been pressed into service to deliver supplies of ammunition to the companies.

The battalion medical section was having its busiest day at the aid station which was in a small building about a hundred yards off the road to the immediate left. Now a barrage hit the aid station. One man was holding out his hand having a finger bandaged; a big shell fragment took off the hand. Wounded men lying helplessly on the floor were wounded a second and a third time; medics were wounded so that they could not care for them. Captain Matthew decided he must move the aid station back. The assistant surgeon gathered up the party and started down the road while Matthew jumped in his jeep and went on down the road to find another site. A pathetic group it was that emerged from the damaged building and filed out onto the road. Bloody bandages fluttering from arms or heads or shoulders… wounded medics carrying men on litters … everyone in a hurry, but no one could run … out to the road to join a stream of God-forsaken human beings … The walking wounded from the Pioneer platoon, and additional ones coming from the companies, added their number to the battered column … French civilians from the little hamlet — the ones who had been so gay the night before — now added to the general confusion by coming out onto the road pulling carts stacked high with bedclothes, utensils, what foodstuffs they might have. They all trudged down the dusty road in the hot sun towards the railroad. Matthew set up his aid station in an orchard along the tracks.

It took some time to get any of 2nd battalion started up, but presently Captain McDaniel approached the area of the battalion CP with Company E. But another barrage was on the way. Tree bursts sent leaves and boughs fluttering to the ground, and sent steel fragments about the men below. Torn bodies writhed on the ground. A man cried out in a loud voice, “Oh, Jesus, someone help me!” And then he died. An “M” company mortar crew was knocked out on the other side of the hedgerow to the right. Other shells hit on top of the hedgerow and on the ground beside it — they cut down that column of men.

It was nearing 5 o’clock now, and Colonel Thomsen was worried about the situation. He chafed at being unable to advance; he was impatient that neither the tanks nor the 2nd Battalion had been able to give any assistance and he was concerned about the loss of men. There had been nearly a hundred casualties so far during the day. Captain Lassiter of Company L had been seriously wounded, and so had First Sergeant Benjamin Miller. Colonel Thomsen was standing behind a tree in the sunken trail. A barrage burst among the trees to scatter its lethal fragments on the sunken trail. Nearly everyone in the command group had been hit. Colonel Thomsen was wounded, Lt. Davis, “K” Company executive, was hit. Captain Bruce, the adjutant, had been knocked out by a shell farther to the rear.

Captain Carroll went up to take over. Medics were at work quickly, but they had a big job on their hands. Colonel Thomsen was unconscious from a wound in his head; the liaison radio had been destroyed, and all the members of the liaison group wounded. Drew, the Battalion Sergeant major, had been killed. The intelligence sergeant was wounded; but when the medics came for him he refused to be evacuated until all the other wounded men had been cared for. Then while he was being carried to safety some minutes later, another shell came to end his life and those of the men carrying him.

With the approach of dusk, the regimental commander ordered the 2nd Battalion to relieve the Third to give the latter an opportunity for reorganization.

Throughout the day the battalion had been receiving shell fire from time to time from the rear. The men could hear the report of the gun distinctly and the shells would come ripping through with deadly effect. Immediately they had accused friendly artillery, but later investigation showed this not to be the case. They concluded that there was an enemy mobile gun somewhere in the rear area.

It was dark before the relieving companies started up, and it was a slow process. Elements of the Third Battalion’s companies had become intermingled during the heavy fighting, and it was a task to get the platoons reorganized so they could move out in an orderly fashion. And any intimation to the enemy that a relief of battalions was going on would have invited disaster. Lt. Ruby had taken the available members of Company M as well as much of Headquarters Company to act as guides. At last members of Company I came back to the vicinity of the farm houses, formed a column, and set off down the muddy sunken trail and turned into the dry gravel road.

The night was calm and clear — with a partial moon, and it was cool as always. Carroll and the S-2 waited another hour — “sweating out” “Bed-check Charlie”; fortunately, they received word that there would be friendly night-fighters up, and “Charlie” missed a call. Presently the sticking, slippery sound of feet upon mud told them that Company L was coming out. It was well after 5 A.M. before all the Battalion was back in the assembly area.

Lieutenant Colonel Sheppard, regimental executive officer, was sitting by a lamp in a dugout; he was to remain with the battalion until its new commander arrived. Members of the earlier companies were already asleep when the later ones started digging their foxholes. Some men had to be sent up to outpost the gap between the First and Second Battalions. Everyone was physically and mentally exhausted. Men had seen about 115 casualties leave the Battalion during the day; they were wondering when their turn would be — percentages looked well enough when the figures were dealing with the whole Army, for most of the Army does not fight, but in the fighting elements of an infantry battalion they began to see that they had no odds in their favor. It was becoming a question not if they were going to get hit, but when, and how badly. Would he be one of the lucky ones, or would he be killed or permanently maimed? During these two weeks of combat the Battalion had suffered 574 casualties — 86 were wounded fatally.

Colonel Thomsen later died of wounds received in this action.