Arrival On The Continent
After arriving in England, two platoons of Company B were the first elements to sail from England aboard a LST on 12 June, arriving in France on 14 June. They immediately moved into positions on the line in the 2nd Infantry Division sector, with the mission to provide anti-mechanized protection for the Division. The remainder of Headquarters Company, Company A, elements of Company B and Company C arrived on 16 June.
From 20 June to 10 July, the battalion protected the division from anti-mechanized attack, with elements harassing the enemy with high velocity interdiction fire. All during this time the enemy was looking down on the U.S. positions from Hill 192, and kept the U.S. units covered with continual harassing mortar, artillery, and long range machine gun fire.
On 25 June the rear echelon arrived from England, which completed the battalion's presence in Normandy. On 3 July the battalion lost its first member in a combat death.
Read more about this topic: 612th Tank Destroyer Battalion
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“There is a grandeur in the uniformity of the mass. When a fashion, a dance, a song, a slogan or a joke sweeps like wildfire from one end of the continent to the other, and a hundred million people roar with laughter, sway their bodies in unison, hum one song or break forth in anger and denunciation, there is the overpowering feeling that in this country we have come nearer the brotherhood of man than ever before.”
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