France
The battalion sailed for Normandy in July, and was landed at Utah Beach on the 18th, equipped with M18 Hellcat tank destroyers. After two weeks of being held in reserve, they were moved to the front line on the 31st and attached to a task force of Third Army which was assigned to capture the ports along the north coast of Brittany; it pushed through Avranches and turned westwards towards Brest; from 6 to 16 August B Company was attached to the 83rd Infantry Division. On 17 August, the battalion liberated the town of Paimpol, on the north coast of Brittany.
On 23 August, one company (B) was assigned to the 2nd Infantry Division, fighting in the Battle for Brest; it was released on 19 September. Meanwhile, the remainder of the battalion was employed fighting on the Crozon Peninsula to the south of the port through September. A shortage of M18s in the supply chain – most battalions in France were equipped with M10s at the time – led to the battalion being assigned a number of M4A3 Shermans, which carried the same 76mm gun, as temporary replacements.
The battalion regrouped in late September, and trained replacements, before moving to the Moselle River. The battalion was attached to the 95th Infantry Division on 15 October, and deployed to relieve the 818th Tank Destroyer Battalion in the Pagny bridgehead on the 20th. It withdrew from the bridgehead in early November, after providing indirect fire support, and was released by the 95th Division on 2 November. It crossed the Moselle again and moved northeast, crossing the border into Germany near Merschweiler on 18 November.
Read more about this topic: 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion
Famous quotes containing the word france:
“The anarchy, assassination, and sacrilege by which the Kingdom of France has been disgraced, desolated, and polluted for some years past cannot but have excited the strongest emotions of horror in every virtuous Briton. But within these days our hearts have been pierced by the recital of proceedings in that country more brutal than any recorded in the annals of the world.”
—James Boswell (1740–1795)
“It is not enough that France should be regarded as a country which enjoys the remains of a freedom acquired long ago. If she is still to count in the world—and if she does not intend to, she may as well perish—she must be seen by her own citizens and by all men as an ever-flowing source of liberty. There must not be a single genuine lover of freedom in the whole world who can have a valid reason for hating France.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“Springtime for Hitler and Germany,
Winter for France and Poland.”
—Mel Brooks (b. 1926)