US Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshall had created the US Army of World War II to take on the Wehrmacht, to drive it out of France and destroy it in the process. The success of D-Day was a good start, but that was yesterday. The Allies had barely penetrated Germany's outermost defences. The Wehrmacht was not the army it had been three years earlier, but it was an army that had refused to die, even after Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk.
That the Wehrmacht kept its cohesion through these catastrophes has been attributed to the superior training of its junior officers. They were not only grounded in detail and doctrine but were encouraged to think and act independently in battle. They also made a critical contribution to the primary bonding-the Kameradschaft-that was so strong and traditional in the German army at the squad level.
Could the American junior officers do as well? Could the American army defeat the German army in France? The answer to the second question depended on the answer to the first.
Chapter One
Expanding the Beachhead: June 7-30, 1944
ON THE morning of June 7, Lieutenant Wray's foray had broken up the German counterattack into Ste. Mere-Eglise before it got started. But by noon the Germans were dropping mortar shells on the town. That afternoon E Company, 505th PIR, moved out to drive the Germans further back. Those who participated included Sergeant Otis Sampson, an old cavalry soldier with ten years in the army, by reputation the best mortarman in the division; Lieutenant James Coyle, a platoon leader in the 505th; and Lieutenant Frank Woosely, a company executive officer.