September-October - Air Defense Artillery

FHO~1 THE fiGHTING rHON 1S
At 1045 an American Shennan tank came up the road,
irted the road corner wide to avoid the mines, and pulled
to position, with its gun facing the turn)n the road. The
w arrival was decidedly unwelcome because the com-
'onanderchose to park it 'about twenty feet ahead of Lt.
'cnt'SGun No.4, almost obscuring the field of fire.
,-\bout 800 yards behind the Sherman in space and two
t ninutes behind it in time, a German Tiger Royal tank
ameto the fateful road bend. Like the Sherman, this tank
\l I'ung knowingly wide around the corner to avoid the
ines.
Gun No.4 fired one round just as the tank came around
. he corner. Almost immediately after this round had left
\hemuzzle of the 90mm, the Sherman parked to its front,
fulled out to the left, necessitating the holding of No. 4's
rewhile the tank turned on the road to get out of the way.
The German, under no such disadvantage, opened fire
~[once with two rounds directed at Gun No.4. The first
' passedwithin whispering distance close over the heads of
(hecrew. The second hit the corner of the station building
~boutfive feet from the gun and threw masonry and dust
rer both gun and crew.
As soon as the obstacle of the Sherman was removed,
Gun No. 4 Ered nine more rounds-a total of ten-at this
rank. One round (probably the Erst) missed. One hit the
jutting "V" at the exact point where the upper and lower
frontal plates joined, and penetrated to the inside. Three
rounds hit the upper frontal plate and dug through 3lh or
4 inches of armor, an excellent job of digging, but ineffectivesince
the upper frontal was seven inches thick.
The rounds that hit the lower frontal plate did the
job. They went through the armor and splattered throughout
the interior compartment, killing all the crew but one,
whowas later killed by an outpost as he tried to leave his
rehicle.
The men servicing Gun No.4 were so busy with their
jobof knocking out their German tank that they failed to
_note two other dangers threatening them. A German halftrack
was moving up along the railroad tracks toward the
1 station building to outflank them, and on the heights across
the Ambleve River, unoccupied by the enemy at 1015,
machine guns were now set up, spraying the station area.
Alert outposts spotted the half-track, engaged it with
riReand machine-gun fire, stopped it and killed or dispersed
.
the crew. The machine-gun Ere from the heights was a
more serious matter, and it was fortunate that this Ere was
delivered with more fury than accuracy. The 1'v1-4tractor
behind the gun was struck several times with little damage,
and the station building spouted dust from many places,
but gun crew and outposts were unharmed.
The gun crew was about to turn its attention to the hilltop
enemy when a second Tiger Royal tank came around
the corner in the road where the Erst had been stopped. It
was engaged immediately and had no chance to return Ere.
Eight rounds were fired, some knocking off the tread, and
others penetrating the lower frontal armor. The crew of the
tank was killed, some in the tank, and others as they tried
to escape.
The destruction of this second German tank occurred at
an extremely fortunate spot. The road through the cut at
this point was flanked by heavy woods on both sides, forcing
any.vehicle the size of a Tiger to move straight up the
road. The Erst tank Gun No. 4 had demolished, blocked
the right-hand side of the road, and the second was hit just
as it maneuvered around the first. The two big tanks
lying, knocked out and dormant, side by side, formed a
road block as effective as though carefully planned and executed.
No other German tanks penetrated beyond this
point, blessed for the AA men by a remarkable combination
of skill and luck.
During the gun crew's engagement with the German
tanks, enemy Ere from across the Ambleve River had grown
so heavy that Lt. Kent decided to withdraw his men from
the gun to better infantry positions. The gun was demol-
~shed, the crew evacuating up the road via M-4 tractor and
Jeep.
C Battery, after his road block action, was reduced to a
one-gun outEt, but they had done rheir job well. In the first
ground action of their unit they knocked out Eve of the
enemy's heaviest tanks, and killed many of the enemy.
None of the men had shirked his duty, and several had
conducted themselves with conspicu~)Usbravery and ingenuity.
Instructed to hold, the men of C Battery had held, using
every means and ruse at their disposal, and Eghting down
to their last gun, had played a vital part in stopping what
easily might have been a successful penetration to important
communications a~d supply centers.
-
Ground Fire Mission with
T ask Force ttD"*
By Lieutenant Frank E. Solomon, Coast ~rtillery Corps
Task Force "0" started to roll at dawn 15 March 1945,
and had proceeded approximately 2,500 yards south to the
edge of a woods where it encountered enemy machine-
*From an officialreport to the CO., 390th AM AW Bn.
gun Ere from prepared trenches running parallel to the road
between Ober-Zerf, Germany. (See Sketch 1.)
The trenches were approximately twenty-Eve yards from
the road. They were dug in a zigzag manner for approximately
100 yards. The platoon commander ordered another
.!../