TheTroubleshooters.com Home                   Catalog                   World War 2                   World War 1                  Links

Patton's Troubleshooters Book                        Patton's Troubleshooters DVD

"We suffered considerable casualties.  My tank was the lead tank to cross the road, followed by my section-Sgt. Royce, Sgt. Marriotti.  Sgt. Ream's tank did not make it, it had ditched, stuck behind the lines.  Sgt. Thomas was the other tank we lost at the time. Three men killed, twelve wounded.  I stated earlier that it was a great loss; it was a loss to the company and the battalion as a whole, because it was our first real battle loss.

In addition to that, I . . . Lt. Miller, should not have really received a direct order to go in line, across the road and get behind the hedgerow and engage the automatic weapons.  General McBride should have relayed the order to reconnoiter and support the position, and then to take up position across the road.  But I'm sure it didn't enter his mind, whether he knew how to do it, or just wanted some direct support, not knowing that there were tanks in Argentan to cover the fields that the men were advancing over.  Anyway, it was a lesson that he ordered more tanks of the company to come up and to support the action across the same field.

With that order, Capt. Stover, Commanding Officer of “B” Company, my company commander, tried to explain that it was not a position for tanks to be in, for support; that we were outgunned and that someone from the anti-tank outfit should come in and engage the tanks.  As I recall, General McBride did not listen to this, and gave him a direct order to bring the tanks up and engage them. 

At which time, Capt. Stover refused to do so and was relieved of command.  I myself, feel that Capt. Stover was correct in the order, that he(McBride) should have had Capt. Stover deploy his tanks in support of the infantry and not tell him what to do with his remaining tanks.  Capt. Stover was relieved of command and later court-martialed over this, which was not a good thing to have to happen to Captain Stover.  Lt. Hansen, 1st Platoon Leader took over as Commanding Officer of 'B' Co., upon which time at hearing it, did not specifically bring the tanks up and engage then into battle.  He reconnoitered the area and attempted to learn what could be done with armor to support the infantry and this is what should have been done in the first place.

S/Sgt. “Pappy” Ream’s Crew-Now Battle Hardened

Secondly, if the first use of armor had not been violated, we probably would have been very successful in the use of armor at the first engagement at Argentan.  The first order of use of armor is to use it enmasse.  If the whole company had been brought forward, in position to support the platoon, the results would have been more successful.  We might have lost tanks, I'm not saying that.  You don't engage Tiger tanks or Mk V's with 88's on them or the souped up 75's with our 75's and come out successful unless you have mass to overcome their capabilities.

Gen. McBride should have asked for a recommendation of how armor could be used and not actually told a platoon leader to do thus-and-so.  As I said earlier, Sgt. Ream did not make it and did not lose anybody, in that his tank got stuck in a draw of some sort and later we were very glad that any of his people didn't get hurt in this particular action.

We learned our lessons at Argentan and later the rest of the unit was brought into action with the 317th and 319th Infantry Regiments.  Here again, as another utilization of mass by the division, deployed its full compliment of capabilities against the Argentan salient.  It, without question, would have been successful much earlier.  Then we would have caught more of the German Seventh Army retreating.  But those are mistakes of battle."