The Assault Gun Platoon

A fateful mission on the first day of combat

I can’t tell you much about Richard Howell, other than that his name is on the Wall of the Missing in the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, that he was from Bienville Parish in Louisiana, that he was married and had a daughter when he entered the service in 1940, and that his widow, Lillian, and daughter, Wanda, were at the first reunion of the 712th Tank Battalion that I attended in 1987, and that I daresay I had a crush on Wanda but she was married. The previous year’s reunion was in New Orleans and Wanda attended with her mother, who never remarried, so they came the next year and the year after as well. I heard from Wanda a few years back; she said she and her two daughters had been to Normandy, but I have since lost touch with her. I haven’t got a picture of Richard Howell, and the photo above is of a memorial marker in Bienville Parish.

What I can tell you is the result of a remarkable confluence of disparate conversations and interviews that present a vivid picture of the circumstances in which Richard Howell died, the only fatality in a column of three 712th Tank Battalion Headquarters Company assault guns — Sherman tanks fitted with a 105-millimeter cannon rather than the standard 75 millimeter gun — in an orchard in Normandy on July 3, 1944, the battalion’s first day in combat.

I haven’t transcribed the above audio clip, so I’ll paraphrase it as best I can. Clark Mazure, whose father was Sergeant Frank Mazure (see my previous Substack “The Spark Plug Thief”), noticed a clip in a German documentary showing a German soldier walking past an apparently disabled tank with the markings of a 712th Tank Battalion Headquarters Company tank, and he was hoping to identify the tank and learn the circumstances. Spoiler alert: His quest did not bear fruit, but inspired a discussion among Mike Anderson, who drove a Headquarters Company assault gun; Paul Wannemacher, the battalion association secretary who was among the earliest replacements, and Lester O’Riley, who briefly was the Headquarters Company commanding officer.

The initial focus was on an episode that took place on July 3, 1944, the battalion’s first day in combat. The battalion had three line companies of medium tanks, one company of light tanks, and an assault gun platoon comprising three assault guns.

On July 3, the assault gun platoon was assigned to the 359th Infantry Regiment of the 90th Infantry Division. As the tanks entered an orchard, the lead tank exchanged fire with a “small” German tank — likely a Mark IV Panzer. The first shot from the German tank hit in the dirt near the American tank, whose gunner fired back and missed. The second shot from the German tank knocked the track off the lead tank. It was followed by the second shot from the assault gun which struck the German tank just below the gun and above the driver’s compartment; although it was a high-explosive shell and would not penetrate the tank, the concussion killed the driver, and the rest of the German crew abandoned the tank.

The lead tank crew was commanded by Sergeant Johnny Young, but the platoon leader, Lieutenant Sam Adair, came along, meaning the tank had six crew members instead of five. Mike Anderson was the driver.

At one point Lieutenant Adair looked back and saw that the second tank was burning fiercely. That’s the tank in which Wanda’s father, Richard Howell, was killed. He was the only fatality, and more about this anon.

The driver of the third tank, Sigmund “Ziggy” Wesilowski, seeing the tank ahead of him burst into flames, “flipped out,” and would be transferred to the Headquarters Company reconnaissance platoon. In a tragic irony, he would be killed on Christmas Eve of 1944 when the jeep he was in ran over a mine.

Rather than abandon the lead tank, Sam Adair remained, possibly with a loader, to fire off the remaining ammunition. At one point, though, the recoil from the large gun struck him in the shoulder. He was “white as a sheet” when he came out of the tank and would be hospitalized for several months.

The three tanks and uninjured crew members remained in the field until the following day. The middle tank had been knocked out by a German 88. There is no mention in the discussion of what became of the 88, but the following morning Mike Anderson went into the German tank. The driver was still in his seat, dead; there was a shell in the gun and the breech was almost closed. Another second or two, Anderson said, and “that would have been the one that got us before we got them.”

That conversation took place in 1992. The full nearly hourlong conversation is in episode 12 of the podcast War As My Father’s Tank Battalion Knew It, available at Apple podcasts and Spotify and other podcast platforms.

In 1994, at the battalion’s Fort Mitchell, Kentucky reunion, I spoke with Bob Atnip, who was the gunner in the third tank.

Following is an excerpt of the transcript of that interview, but first, as this is a pretty intense Substack, a bit of comic relief.

“I went through the war and never got hurt,” Bob said near the end of the interview. “Some strange things happened, though. Like once a shell fell, well, just in front of me. When all the smoke cleared away, I’m standing on the edge of a crater. I was outside of the tank. I got out to go down to Johnny Young to try to show him a machine gun that was firing up there and he couldn’t see it, but I could. I had a big loose-fitting coat on and it shredded that. They counted little shrapnel holes in the coat, and I wasn’t touched. The only thing they ever reasonably could figure, if I’d been six inches further away from the blast, the concussion would have got me. If I’d have been six inches closer I would have been blown apart. I was in a zone there that all I could hear was rocks, gravel and sand coming up. I run over to the tank, and (Kenneth) Hainey was the commander of one of the tanks there, and I pecked on the side of the tank. He reached up, I saw his fingers come up through the hatch, he says “Go away! You’re supposed to be dead!” I go down and get back in Johnny’s tank, and I’m hunkered down, I’m showing Johnny where, I said, ‘Now watch this. When the German fires again, you’ll see the blast.’” A shell burst over in the next block. One old long piece of shrapnel comes putt-putt-putt-putt through there, hit the building, bounced off, and knocked me off the tank.

“These things, you have one go off in your face [and you’re unhurt], and then another one goes off that shouldn’t even bother you, and you get knocked off the tank.”

Now back to Normandy.

Aaron Elson: Your name is Bob Atnip?

Bob Atnip: Atnip, yeah.

Aaron Elson: And you were with Headquarters Company all the way through?

Bob Atnip: Yes, I was.

Aaron Elson: And you were in the assault gun platoon?

Bob Atnip: Yes.

Aaron Elson: Was Morse Johnson in that?

Bob Atnip: No, he was with A Company. Lieutenant Adair would be, he was the lieutenant.

Aaron Elson: Sam Adair? And who was in your crew?

Bob Atnip: Let's see, I had a gunner O’Shea, Anderson which is here now, he was one of the crew. Michael Anderson.

Aaron Elson: He was in your tank?

Bob Atnip: Yes, no, I'm sorry, he was not in my tank.

Aaron Elson: He was in the first tank.

Bob Atnip: That's right. The first tank was Mike, and Young, Johnny Young, Lieutenant Adair was riding with them. I can’t tell you who the gunner was. They got through, past the one gun that caused us all the trouble. They ran out into the woods around a little curve, looking head on at a small German tank, and they were firing at each other. And it knocked the track off of the tank that the lieutenant was in; he got his shoulder damaged.

Aaron Elson: What can you recall about seeing that second tank get hit?

Bob Atnip: The second tank that got hit? That was with Howell?

Aaron Elson: Yes.

Bob Atnip: That was about probably 75 or maybe 100 feet from me, and I happened to be looking that way, I don't know why, when the first round hit it. They hit it twice. Shelton, Sergeant Shelton, was the tank commander. Hall was the gunner. Howell was the loader. And Philip Morgan was the driver. We lost several men that day, hurt, and wounded. Our halftrack, which was held back a little bit behind, pretty well took a direct hit, and we lost five or six men there.

Aaron Elson: Do you remember the names?

Bob Atnip: Really I don't.

Aaron Elson: What can you remember about seeing Howell's tank hit?

Bob Atnip: The rear end of the tank was more toward me and the front away from us. Seeing the tank hit, it seemed to jar it. And the second shot hit, and flames flew up, just mushroomed out in a matter of seconds. I seen Shelton come out of the tank, carrying Howell by the shirt collar.

Aaron Elson: He carried Howell by the shirt collar?

Bob Atnip: Shelton was a very strong person. And he literally flung him out of the tank out on the ground, with one hand. Now I didn’t see anybody else come out of the tank. And it was burning fiercely at that time.

Aaron Elson: Howell was burning?

Bob Atnip: No, the tank was burning. But we had 66 rounds of ammunition in that tank, and the second shot the Germans fired shot went right under the track, where the thin part was, and after, it burned there for quite a while. I saw the 90th Infantry infantrymen bringing Morgan to an old house that’s settin' up out front there, and I hollered at them, “Where are you taking this man?” And Morgan was blind at that time; the skin was kind of swollen together so he couldn't see, from the concussion I suppose. So an infantryman said, “Do you know this man?”

I said, “Sure, he’s out of that tank here.” And he had an odd-looking helmet, it didn’t match the rest of us, and the infantryman thought he was German. So he said, “I'll take him to the medics, then.” So he took him to the medics. And I never did see Howell.

Aaron Elson: Howell got out of the tank?

Bob Atnip: No, I don’t think Howell ever got out.

Aaron Elson: But you said that you saw Shelton lifting Howell by the shoulders.

Bob Atnip: That was Hall, H-A-L-L.

Aaron Elson: Oh, Hall, not Howell. Hall. What was he?

Bob Atnip: Raymond Hall. He was the gunner. Setting right down in front of the commander. [this may be Herman Hall]

Aaron Elson: And was he wounded?

Bob Atnip: Yes he was, he got some burns, and was evacuated. For some time; he finally did come back to join us later in the war. And Rowell, not Howell but Rowell, was the assistant driver.

Aaron Elson: Rowell. [this is Olen Rowell of Decatur, Miss.] Now wait a minute, you had a Howell, a Hall and a Rowell.

Bob Atnip: There you go. Rowell just got killed in an automobile accident in the last year or so. He lived down in Mississippi, down in Meridien. He, you see, they had gone out the front hatches; the driver and the assistant driver went out the front, and they got around where this old building was, where just moments before the Germans were occupying but they took off when all this action started; they backed up. This infantry went on around, that’s where he come flushing Hall, I mean Morgan out, thinking he was a German because he had this odd-looking helmet; it didn't match the rest of us.

Anyway, the next day, I, well, I set there most of the time, all night. We was the only thing left, and the infantry said, “Just hold it, don’t move. If we’ll be needing you we’ll tell you, because you come up here, all you’re doing is drawing mortar fire on us.” We set there all night, and the next day our maintenance crew came up there with a tank and pulled the old hull that was left off of that pile of ashes, and we sifted through all through that. We couldn't find any fragment of bone or body. The only thing we found was little buttons that looked like, you know, brass buttons.

Aaron Elson: Little buttons?

Bob Atnip: Brass buttons. Like was on the Army fatigue clothes. That was the only thing there; everything else was just cremated. So I always thought, maybe the driver and assistant driver went out and I didn't see him until a few minutes later, maybe somehow he got out that way, but ...

Aaron Elson: And Howell, what was his position?

Bob Atnip: He was the loader. It caught him, kind of down here with no way out. The gunner and commander had to go out this way, and the driver and assistant driver had to go out the front, and there he was.

We went up the next day and looked at the gun, seen the gun I’m sure that did the damage. It was an old tripod 88-millimeter German gun. I think what they must have done is left one man on it, he knocked out our tanks, and then just went off and left the gun.

Aaron Elson: Oh, you found the gun?

Bob Atnip: Oh, yes. The old tripod 88-millimeter. We went up to go around a road, at the edge of an apple orchard. And the Navy was gonna fire a couple of shells from a Navy ship back there, smoke shells, lay down a screen for cover. They fired a couple, but the wind blowed it away; we didn't have any cover. They said “Go,” so we went. We were just exposed.

Aaron Elson: Oh, but the plan was, before you went, the three tanks, that they were supposed to give you a smokescreen?

Bob Atnip: Right. The Navy, see, that was setting back in the bay. They did fire two shells, but it didn't give us any cover at all.

Aaron Elson: What else can you remember about going into Howell's tank? What did it look like inside?

Bob Atnip: Oh, it was just the hull that was left; there was no, there was nothing in there but hollow...

Aaron Elson: Did it have an odor, of like burnt...

Bob Atnip: No, now that’s another thing, I didn’t know then, but later I found out, when a body burns, you know that smell, it’s a powerful odor.

Aaron Elson: How did that affect you, getting into a tank like that and thinking, you know, tomorrow I've got to be in one of these...

Bob Atnip: If anybody told me you could live a week in a mess like that I wouldn't believe them, you know what I mean? It was just a matter of who’s next or when, but...

Aaron Elson: If anybody told you you could live a week? You didn't think you were gonna last a week?

Bob Atnip: I never dwelled on it, you know what I mean? I just unconsciously thought it.

Aaron Elson: Your job was what, you were a gunner or a loader?

Bob Atnip: I was a gunner for a time.

The Maintenance Crew:

“On one of our missions,” Ed Stuever, a sergeant in Service Company, said, “we had to go in and pick up a tank that had a 105 on it. It was disabled, but it had disabled a German Mark IV tank back in the corner of this orchard.

“There were a bunch of disabled tanks, German and American. But this one particular German tank, that Mark IV back in the corner, the body of this man driving was still in there, and this portfolio that he had had in his coat pocket, or his uniform, was laying on his lap. I looked at it, and it had the pictures of his wife and children in it. He was a very handsome man. He looked like he had been a movie star or something, that’s the expression that one of the other guys said, ‘He must have been a movie star.’

“As the war went on, maybe months later, we were somewhere in Germany, and they told me that there’s a room upstairs in this building that you can spend the night in, because they always told me where to bed down. I never had time. I always had work. When I went up into this house, I saw this man’s picture.

“I said, ‘Who is that?’

“‘That’s my husband.’

“I couldn’t sleep in that house. It was just like what we saw in that portfolio, with the two kids and the wife, and the picture of him. I called some of the guys’ attention to it. I think Wallace was one of them that remembered it, and Patsy Barchetta recalled the incident. That was a choking time.”