By Maj. William Carraway
Historian, Georgia Army
National Guard
 |
| General Dwight D. Eisenhower inspects the 230th Field Artillery Battalion in the days leading up to the D-Day invasion (Jacobs) |
The Call
to Arms
On June 8,
1944, the 230th Field Artillery Battalion was stationed in Wycombe England.
While they were aware that the D-Day landings had commenced two days previous,
the men had no idea how soon they would be employed as part of the continental
invasion. That afternoon, blaring sirens heralded the beginning of movement.
The men were given 45 minutes to load up in vehicles bound for Southampton. Many
of the Soldiers must have imagined that this was yet another in a series of
drills. These rumors were quickly crushed as the men learned they were being
rushed to France to replace a field artillery battalion of the 29th Infantry Division
which had lost its field howitzers during the assault on Omaha Beach. These
former Georgia Guardsmen turned 30th Infantry Division artilleryman were now
part of the 29th Division, and within hours, the 230th would become the first
Georgia Guard unit to enter combat in France.
Prelude:
From Savannah to Southern England
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| Coat of Arms of the 230th FA BN. (Jacobs) |
On September
16, 1940, the Georgia National Guard and its 5,200 Soldiers were accepted into
federal service. [i]
Among the Guard units swept up in the pre-war fervor were the two
Savannah-based battalions of the 118th Field Artillery Regiment. Shortly after
activation, the field artillery batteries were sent to Fort Jackson, S.C. for
initial training as part of the 30th Division. The 118th FAR participated in
the Tennessee Maneuvers in from June to August 1941 and the Carolina Maneuvers,
which took place in October and November 1941.[ii]
On February
16, 1942, the 118th Field Artillery Regiment was reorganized as the 118th Field
Artillery Battalion and 230th Field Artillery Battalion[iii].
The 230th was comprised of The Chatham Artillery, who formed Batteries A and C;
the Irish Jasper Greens which comprised Battery B and the German Volunteers who
formed the Service Battery.[iv] The
reorganization was initiated after the 30th Division was reorganized and
redesignated as the 30th Infantry Division. Another result of this reorganization was the
reassignment of the 121st Infantry Regiment to the 8th Infantry Division.[v]
Following
the reorganization, the 230th participated in the second Carolina Maneuvers in
the spring of 1942 before stationing at Camp Blanding, Fla. in September. At
Camp Blanding, the ranks of the 230th were bolstered by recruits from 44 of the
48 states, the majority of which coming from Georgia and Pennsylvania.[vi]
Additional training followed at Camp Gordon, Ga. and Camp Forrest, Tenn.
Arriving in Tennessee in June 1943, the 230th formed a combat team with the
120th Infantry Regiment. The two units trained together for five months before
moving north by rail through Fort Knox to Camp Atterbury, Ind. Training
continued through the winter of 1944 and culminated with the 230th passing the
Army Ground Forces Test and being proclaimed combat ready.[vii]
On February
1, the Soldiers of the 230th boarded a train bound for Camp Myles
Standish, a mobilization and debarkation camp located near Taunton, Mass. Over
the next ten days the men received passes to visit Boston or New York and
shivered around camp stoves against the effects of the Massachusetts winter.
The long wait ended February 11 as the men boarded trains bound for
Boston and embarkation.
Arriving at Boston Harbor, the men milled about the docks enjoying hot coffee and donuts while equipment and men were loaded aboard the S.S. Argentina, a former passenger liner that had been converted to haul troops in bulk rather than passengers in luxury. The Argentina’s convoy sailed out of Boston Harbor February 12, Abraham Lincoln’s birthday. The men took this as an auspicious start to what would prove to be an uneventful voyage. The 230th shared the Argentina with the 120th Infantry, the former being crammed into the stern of the ship with headquarters so far down that “only the bilge separated the boys from the keel.”[viii]
On February
22, the S.S. Argentina sailed up the Clyde River and anchored at Gourock,
Scotland 25 miles east of Glasgow. From there, the Soldiers were crammed onto
trains which puttered their way through London eventually depositing the
batteries of the 230th in southern England. The men were lodged in damp cold
huts made the more inhospitable by the rationing of coal. Lying in their cots
at night the men could hear the sound of bombs exploding in London fifty miles
away.
On April 4, the 230th was moved to Wycombe to make room for the staging of troops
that would go ashore on D-Day. In Wycombe, training and preparation for the
invasion continued. The men fastidiously waterproofed their vehicles and
howitzers until the trucks could be driven through test wading pools with only
the drivers and windshield exposed. As these trials and training events
continued the drone of Allied
bombers steadily increased as did the frequency of visitors to the training
camps. General Bernard Montgomery, who would command all ground forces during
the initial phase of Operation Overlord, addressed units of the 30th Division
in May. That same month, General Courtney Hodges, deputy commander of 1st Army
inspected the 30th Division Artillery and spoke with the men. May concluded
with a visit from General Dwight Eisenhower who moved among the men of the
230th inspecting equipment and talking with individual Soldiers. [ix]
On June 5, Maj. Gen. Leland Hobbs, commander of the 30th Infantry Division,
addressed the Soldiers of the 230th FA telling them “This is a day (you) will
never forget.”[x]
Thus, as airborne troops assembled to board transport aircraft and Soldiers of
the assaulting divisions waited tensely aboard countless naval vessels the men
of the 230th made final equipment preparations uncertain of the outcome of future operations, or when they would be employed. The sirens of June 8
relieved that uncertainty.
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| Soldiers of the 230th FA await transport from Southampton to Normandy (Jacobs) |
Omaha Beach
The convoy
carrying the 230th left Southampton the evening of June 9, crossing
relatively calm seas and arrived off the coast of France by dawn the next day. As
the sun rose, the artillerymen were confronted with an unparalleled spectacle
of military might. Ships were anchored from one end of the horizon to the other
while the sounds of combat
emanated from Allied forces fighting throughout the hedgerows of France. Amphibious ships
scuttled about bearing their cargo from anchored ships to the shore.
The 230th
arrived on Omaha Beach on two LSTs but grounded in ten feet of water and
 |
| Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Vieman, commander 230th Field Artillery Battalion. (Jacobs) |
Eventually
the tide rose and the 230th was able to disembark beginning with Battery A. By
3:30 pm all men and equipment had unloaded onto Omaha Beach. The Soldiers made
their way via a winding road about one-half mile inland past fields bordered by
rows of trees to Colleville sur Mer.
The route to
Colleville sur Mer brought the full panoply of war home for the men of the 230th.
The frames of ruined houses smoldered in the fading light. Dead German Soldiers
and dead cows alike littered the landscape. A cross by the side of the road
marked the fresh graves of four American Soldiers, their final resting place
decorated with flowers by an unknown French citizen. Every tree, every bend in
the road held the promise of danger and death from a burst of German machine
gun fire. Nervous Soldiers fired into the night at the sounds of rustling. One
Soldier shot fifteen holes in a towel that was snapping in the breeze on a clothesline
while a wandering mule generated enough noise to create a veritable crossfire
near battalion headquarters. Soldiers had to duck fire from a nearby tank that
had mistaken their movements for those of the enemy. Diving into a ditch, Cpl.
Ralph Hyder of Battery A discovered a hidden German sniper who quickly became a
prisoner, the first for the 30th Division and the first of 229 to be captured
by the 230th. It was an eventful and fortunately bloodless first day in France.[xii]
On the
Way
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| Staff Sgt. Edward Smith. Georgia Guard Archives |
The 230th
fired its first round the next morning to reinforce the fires of
the 110th Field Artillery Battalion. On June 12, the battalion lost its first Soldier,
Staff Sgt. Edward Smith. The 22-year-old Georgia National Guard Soldier had
served in the 118th FA before the war. He was moving in advance of friendly
lines with a forward observer party when he was killed by German machine gun
fire.
The
battalion displaced forward to St. Clair On June 12. The next day, the
230th was reassigned to the 30th Division and ordered to move to Catz,
southeast of Carentan. That evening after crossing the Vire River and setting
up firing positions, the battalion was strafed by Luftwaffe aircraft. As a
result, a battery of the 531st Anti-Aircraft Battalion was attached to the
230th and would provide air cover for them until they reached the Elbe River.
Allied units
including the 30th ID continued to expand the D-Day lodgement pressing ever
closer towards the German-held city of St. Lo. During the advance to the Vire
River, the 230th provided fire support for the 120th Infantry Regiment.[xiii]
From their position on the high ground overlooking the river, the 230th were
tempting targets for German artillery. Shells rained onto the artillery
positions. Shrapnel from a bursting artillery shell struck Cpl. Robert
McClanahan of Battery A but the lucky Soldier was spared serious injury when
the shrapnel was stopped by a roll of Life Savers candy he had in his uniform pocket.[xiv]
After crossing the Vire, the 120th occupied the town of Mont-Martin en
Grainges.[xv] By
the time the 230th entered the town on June 22, the 30th ID had received
orders to hold a defensive line along the Vire while the 2nd and 29th Infantry
pressed the attack towards St. Lo.
Epilogue:
This chapter
provided a sketch of the actions of one Georgia Guard Battalion from its
Operation Overlord beach landing to the prelude of Operation Cobra that would precipitate
the Allied breakout of Normandy. With the 230th FA poised for Operation Cobra,
the narrative now returns to the beach and the landing of the 118th Field
Artillery Battalion. The next chapter will follow the 118th from Omaha Beach to
the outskirts of St. Lo. The succeeding chapter will follow the 121st Infantry
Regiment from the sands of Utah Beach through the hedgerow battles of Normandy
and end with them poised for their breakout mission.
This work
owes a great debt to the historians of the 230th FA who recorded the history as
it happened:
First
Lieutenant John W. Jacobs, 230th FA
Sergeant
Harold Burney, Headquarters Battery
Corporal
Francis X. Hennessy, Able Battery
Corporal
Louis A. Cesario, Baker Battery
Sergeant
Zane G. Hunter, Charlie Battery
Sergeant
Lloyd B. Ellington, Dog Battery
Corporal
William E. Fitz Gerald Service Battery
[i] Carraway,
William. "The Georgia Guard on the Eve of War: May 1939." May 23,
2019. Accessed June 20, 2019.
http://www.georgiaguardhistory.com/2019/05/the-georgia-guard-on-eve-of-war-may-1939.html.
[ii] History
in Action: 118th Field Artillery, 30th Infantry Division 1942-1945, 2nd
Edition. Washington, D.C.: Florida “Gator” Chapter, 1988, 6.
[iii] Ibid,
7.
[iv] Jacobs, John et al. On the Way: A Historical Narrative of
the Two-Thirtieth Field Artillery Battalion Thirtieth Infantry Division. Poessneck,
Germany: F. Gerold Verlag, 1945, 1.
[v] 121st
Infantry Regiment. The Gray Bonnet; Combat History of the 121st Infantry
Regiment. Baton Rouge, LA: Army & Navy Publishing Co., 1946, 4.
[vi]
Ibid, 2.
[vii]
Ibid, 3.
[viii]
Ibid, 4.
[ix]
Ibid, 10.
[x]
Ibid.
[xi]
Ibid, 13.
[xii]
Ibid, 14-15.
[xiii]
Ibid, 18.
[xiv]
Ibid, 19.
[xv] Harrison,
Gordon A. Cross-Channel Attack. Washington, D.C.: Office of the Chief of
Military History, Dept. of the Army, 1951, 377-379.
