My grandfather always spoke of this battle being his most difficult. His unit lost more men in the Bulge, but this Battle left more memories than any other.
@ABWorsham:
My grandfather always spoke of this battle being his most difficult. His unit lost more men in the Bulge, but this Battle left more memories than any other.
bad link …
@ABWorsham:
“This video contains content owned SME, that is … blablabla”
My grandfather always spoke of this battle being his most difficult.
I’m sorry, but with the name of the of the city and that quote you have to at least smile most likely laugh.
I briefly visited Brest and I brought back as a souvenir a book which shows, side-by-side, pictures of what parts of the city looked like before and after the war. Brest was heavily bombed during the war – it had a major naval base – and was about 90% destroyed by the time the Allies finished liberating it in the fall of 1944. It was reconstructed very quickly, with little attention being paid to aesthetic niceties due to the urgency of the situation, and as a result the city today is quite bland compared to the charming place it used to be.
I have my grandfather’s 2nd Infantry Combat book from WWII. I did some research within the pages to better understand his 38th infantry regiment role in the battle.
In Normandy the 2nd Div. got it’s baptism in combat taking Hill 192 and the village of Berigny near St Lo.
After the break out, the 2nd Div was sent to the Breton Peninsula as a part of the U.S VIII Corp. to take the port of Brest for an addition supply depot. Brest was the best defended of the port cities. It was defended by the 2nd German Parachute div, the 266th Inf and 343 Inf, along with a mixed group of civil service workers, naval marine units (many from the u-boat service, and mixed Russian units). The total defenders were around 50,000 men.
The city was defended by three defensive rings surrounding the city, including in this defense was a 17th century Vauban fort (one of the greatest fortification designers in history)
My grandfather’s 38th regiment took Hill 154 overlooking Brest, the hill was defended by 25 MG42, two 88mm and a 75mm self propelled gun. With Hill 154 taken much of the Southern coastal defensive of Brest fell, this included 3,000 POW’s, fifty guns ranging from 20mm to 120mm.
The 38th then took Hill 90, one of the German strong points in the city’s last rings of defense this was held by the crack 2nd German Para. Meanwhile German demolition crews were making a wreck of the city’s port facilities and waterways.
The Germans had planned holding the city for 90 days, the city was taken in 24 days. Progress within the city was a snail pacing one mile every three days. The U.S Casualties were 4,000 men.
The Americans fired 600,000 rounds of large caliber ammunition, this with the years of Allied bombings left the city of Brest a wreck.
After the Battle it was thought better to let the other Atlantic ports in German hand ‘wither on the vine’.
The 2nd Div. needed to regroup after the 21 day battle, the Army sent the unit north of St. Vith in the Ardennes to rest, only to find themselves in the opening shots of the Bulge.
That’s some impressive detail. Did all those soldiers have combat books or was it just your grandfather?
@Dylan:
That’s some impressive detail. Did all those soldiers have combat books or was it just your grandfather?
I believe the U.S Army sold books to all Divisions, which gave the details and war history of that unit.
His books has the list of combat deaths from the 2nd ID. Somewhere around 3,500 combat deaths from the 2nd ID. He had placed pen marks next to friends that he lost, it gives WWII a much more personal outlook.
They still make unit books for combat tours, the Units themselves do it, usualy an S2 function, however nowadays they are usualy much less dramatic… I have two…
