Kali River Goonch Attacks

Two of the men leapt up and dashed away. Two others grabbed their mortar and ran. Kerley started breathing again. "Nice work, Sergeant," he called out. ON AUGUST 11 Kluge finally got Hitler's permission to break off the attack at Mortain and begin the retreat through the Falaise gap. It was a momentous, if inevitable, decision, because once the retreat began, there was no place to stop, turn, and defend short of the Siegfried Line at the German border. The line of the Seine could not be defended: there were too many bends in the river, too many potential crossing places to defend. Once the retreat began, the Battle of France had been won. At 1430 on the fifth day of the siege of Hill 317, August 12, the 35th Division broke through the German lines and relieved the 2nd Battalion on Hill 317. Of the 700 GIs on the hill, some 300 were dead (including Sergeant Corn) or wounded. Lieutenant Weiss had called in 193 fire missions while the battalion had been surrounded. After eating and getting some sleep, he wrote his after action report on a typewriter, hunting and pecking ...»