HELL ON HILL 314: The 700 Americans WHO STOPPED HITLER’S LAST COUNTERSTRIKE — Six Days of FIRE, STARVATION, and an UNSPEAKABLE Reply

 

The engines came first — a deep metallic growl that rolled up the slopes like distant thunder. It was 1:00 a.m., August 7, 1944, and the summer air over Mortain, Normandy hung thick with diesel and fear.
Second Lieutenant Robert Weiss, twenty-one years old and already far older than his years, crouched in a foxhole near the summit of Hill 314, clutching the receiver of his SCR-610 radio. Below him, in the fog, an army was moving.

He could hear them — the clank of treads, the barked commands in German, the metallic hiss of steel rubbing against steel. The night smelled of oil, sweat, and crushed grass. Somewhere down there, beyond the hedgerows, were four Panzer divisions — nearly three hundred tanks and twenty-six thousand men.

And up here on the hill, there were seven hundred Americans. No tanks. No heavy guns. Just rifles, mortars, and a few bazookas.
They weren’t supposed to fight. They were supposed to hold the line — a quiet assignment after the slaughter of Saint-Lô. But the war had other plans.

Weiss adjusted his field glasses. Below him, through the drifting fog, the faint flicker of headlights moved along the road to Mortain. The sound of tank engines reverberated off the valley walls, rising like a heartbeat.

The German offensive — Operation Lüttich — had begun.

Hitler himself had ordered it. His words, wired from his headquarters deep in East Prussia, were clear: “Drive to Avranches. Cut the Americans in two. Throw them into the sea.”

If they succeeded, General George S. Patton’s Third Army — the armored juggernaut racing through France — would be trapped. The Allied breakout from Normandy would collapse before it had truly begun.

And the only thing standing in their way was this rocky hill. Hill 314 — the “Mountain of Joy,” the French called it, because pilgrims once climbed it to glimpse Mont-Saint-Michel glimmering in the distance.
By dawn, it would be anything but joyful.

To understand how seven hundred men came to be stranded on that hilltop, you have to go back a few weeks — to the moment when the German army in France began to die.

For nearly two months after D-Day, Allied troops had clawed through Normandy’s hedgerow country — the bocage, a green labyrinth of earthen walls and narrow lanes perfect for ambushes. Every field was a fortress, every hedge a potential grave. The fighting was slow, brutal, personal.

Then, on July 25, 1944, the Americans unleashed Operation Cobra. Thousands of B-17 Flying Fortresses and B-24 Liberators turned the German front near Saint-Lô into a furnace.
When the smoke cleared, entire divisions were gone — vaporized under a rain of high explosives.
Patton’s tanks roared through the gap.

The German commander in Normandy, Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, knew the truth: the war in France was lost unless they could escape. He wanted to retreat, regroup behind the Seine, and save what was left of the Wehrmacht.
But in his headquarters at Rastenburg, Hitler raged.
He saw retreat as treason. He wanted a counterattack — not a withdrawal.

“Attack through Mortain,” he ordered, pounding the map with his fist. “Reach the coast. Cut off Patton. Throw them back into the sea!”

The generals argued. They explained that their Panzer divisions were shadows of what they once were. That Allied air power ruled the skies. That they lacked fuel, ammunition, even functioning radios.
But the Führer didn’t want facts. He wanted miracles.

He demanded eight Panzer divisions. Von Kluge could scrape together four — battered remnants of once-proud formations:

2nd Panzer Division, under General Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz,

116th Panzer Division “Windhund,” commanded by General Gerhard von Schwerin,

2nd SS Panzer Division “Das Reich,” under SS-Oberführer Otto Baum,

and elements of 1st SS Panzer Division “Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler.”

Together, they still had over 300 armored vehicles — Panthers, Mark IVs, self-propelled guns, and a grim determination born of desperation.

They would strike at midnight.

Continue below

 

 

 

At 01:00 hours on August 7, 1944, Second Lieutenant Robert Vice crouched in a shallow foxhole near the summit of a rocky hill in Normandy, listening to the sound of tank treads grinding through the darkness below. The night air was thick with humidity, carrying the smell of crushed grass and diesel exhaust.

 Somewhere in the blackness, metal was clanking against metal, engines were rumbling, men were shouting in German. The hill was called Monoa by the French, named centuries ago because pilgrims climbing its slopes could catch their first glimpse of the distant abbey at Monsan Michelle, 27 mi away. The name meant mountain of joy. To the American army, it was simply hill 314. After its height in meters, roughly 1,30 ft above sea level.

 700 men from the second battalion, 120th Infantry Regiment, had climbed to its crest just hours earlier. Most of them would not climb back down. Weiss was 21 years old, a forward artillery observer from Pennsylvania assigned to the 230th Field Artillery Battalion. He carried a 35 lb SCR 610 radio in a saddle soaped leather case.

 The FM set had a 5mile range, just enough to reach the howitzer batteries dug in to the west. He wore the same wool surge shirt his father, a Jewish immigrant from Hungary, had worn in the First World War. From his position near the summit, Weiss could see for miles in every direction when the weather was clear.

 He could see the roads below, the town of Mortaine to the west, and the critical highway that ran straight toward the branches where General George Patton’s third army was pouring into France. What Vice heard coming through the darkness that night was the sound of four German Panza divisions, 300 tanks, and 26,000 soldiers advancing toward his position.

Adolf Hitler had personally ordered them to attack. Their mission was to cut through Morta, reach the coast at Avanches, and sever the Allied supply lines. If they succeeded, they would trap Patton’s forces in Britany and potentially reverse the entire Allied breakout from Normandy. The only thing standing in their way was a single American infantry battalion on a rocky hill with no tanks, no heavy weapons, and no way out. What happened over the next six days would become one of the most remarkable small unit actions in

the history of the Second World War. It would change the course of the Normandy campaign and set in motion the destruction of the German army in France. The crisis at Morta began not in France but in Germany in the mind of a desperate dictator watching his empire crumble. By early August 1944, the Allied invasion of Normandy had succeeded beyond anyone’s expectations.

 For six weeks after the D-Day landings on June 6th, Allied forces had been contained in a relatively small beach head, fighting through the deadly hedro country that favored the defenders. Progress had been measured in yards, not miles. Casualties had been horrific. Then everything changed. On July 25, American forces launched Operation Cobra, a massive offensive that shattered the German defensive lines near Saint Low.

 Heavy bombers carpet bombed the German positions, killing hundreds of defenders and stunning the survivors. American armor poured through the gaps. Within days, the entire western half of the German front in Normandy collapsed. German units that had held firm for weeks suddenly found themselves bypassed, surrounded, or destroyed.

 On August 1, American forces captured Avanches at the base of the Cotentine Peninsula, and General George Patton’s newly activated third army began pouring through the gap into the French interior. It was exactly the breakout the allies had been hoping for since D-Day. German forces were retreating in disorder. The road to Paris lay open.

 German field commanders understood what this meant. Field Marshall Gunther Vonluja commanding all German forces in Normandy believed the only rational course was to withdraw east to the Sen River, establish a new defensive line, and prevent the complete destruction of his armies. His officers agreed.

 The situation was deteriorating by the hour. Every day of delay meant more men lost, more equipment abandoned, more chances for the Allies to encircle and destroy what remained of German strength in France. But Hitler refused to accept reality.

 The Furer had watched the Eastern front collapse the previous month during Operation Bagration, the Soviet summer offensive that destroyed German army group center and killed or captured over 400,000 soldiers. Now his western front was crumbling too. His generals councled retreat, consolidation, defense. Hitler saw only cowardice and defeatism. On August 2, Hitler issued a directive to Vonluga, ordering an immediate counterattack between Morta and Avanches. The plan was audacious, perhaps insane.

 German forces would punch through the thin American lines at Morta, drive 20 mi west to the coast, and cut off everything Patton had sent into Britany. With the American supply lines severed, Hitler believed the entire Allied offensive would collapse.

 Hitler demanded that eight of the nine Panza divisions in Normandy be used in the assault, supported by 1,000 Luftvafa fighter aircraft. It would be a hammer blow that would reverse the Allied breakout and restore German fortunes in the West, Vonlouj protested. He told Hitler the attack had no chance of success. The Panza divisions were exhausted and under strength after weeks of brutal fighting.

 The second SS Panza division, Das Reich, once one of the most powerful armored formations in the German military, had been reduced to a shadow of its former strength. The same was true of the other divisions Hitler wanted to commit. There was no way to concentrate eight divisions in time.

 The Luftvafer could not provide 1,000 fighters because it no longer had 1,000 fighters available in France. Allied air superiority made daylight movement suicidal. The entire plan was fantasy. Hitler responded by sending General Walter Wlemont, his deputy chief of staff at OKW, the German armed forces headquarters, to von Klugger’s headquarters to ensure compliance. The message was clear.

 Obey or face the consequences. Hitler was already suspicious that some of his generals had been involved in the July 20 assassination attempt against him. Disobedience could be fatal. Vonuga capitulated. He ordered the attack to begin on the night of August 6th, but instead of eight Panza divisions, vonuga could assemble only four, and one of those was incomplete.

 The second Panza division under General Hinrich von Lutvitz. The 116th Panza Division under General Ghard Vonvarin. The second SS Panza Division Das Reich under SS Ofura Ottobal and elements of the first SS Panza Division Libstandata Adolf Hitler. Together they fielded roughly 75 MarkV tanks, 70 Panther tanks, and 32 self-propelled guns. about 300 armored fighting vehicles in total.

 They were supported by the 17th SS Panza Grenadier Division and remnants of several infantry divisions that had been shattered in the previous weeks of fighting. It was a fraction of what Hitler demanded, but it was still a formidable force, especially against the American Infantry Division that had just arrived in the sector. The 30th Infantry Division had a proud history stretching back to the First World War.

 Formed from Army National Guard units drawn from Tennessee, Georgia, and the Carolas, the division had earned the nickname Old Hickory after President Andrew Jackson. In 1918, the division had fought in the Muse Argon offensive and distinguished itself in combat against the German army.

 Now, a generation later, the sons and nephews of those First World War veterans were back in France, fighting the same enemy. The 30th Division had landed on Normandyy’s Omaha Beach on June 11, 1944, 5 days after D-Day. The men had trudged through the grim remains of the slaughter that had occurred during the initial landings, then moved inland to join the brutal hedge fighting that characterized the Normandy campaign.

 For weeks, they had fought through the Boage country, the ancient Norman farmland, divided by thick hedgeros that provided perfect defensive positions for the Germans. The fighting had been hellish. Progress was measured in fields, not miles. Every hedge might conceal a machine gun nest, a sniper, or an anti-tank gun.

 The division suffered heavy casualties, including many killed by friendly fire during the short bombing incident on July 24 and 25 when American heavy bombers accidentally dropped their loads on American positions. Among those nearly killed in the short bombing was Lieutenant General Leslie McNair, the commander of United States ground forces who was in France acting as a decoy. He became the highest ranking American officer killed in combat during the Second World War.

McNair died just 75 yards from Sergeant Frank Denius of the 230th Field Artillery Battalion. By early August, the 30th Division was exhausted. The men had been in near constant combat for almost 2 months. They had seen friends die. They had killed enemy soldiers. They had been bombed by their own air force. They were ready for arrest.

 On August 6, the division was ordered to relieve the first infantry division at Morta and hold the critical road junction against any German counterattack. The commanders told the soldiers this would be a quiet sector, an easy assignment after weeks of vicious combat. The Germans were supposed to be retreating. The timing could not have been worse.

 Lieutenant Colonel Eids Hardaway, commanding the second battalion of the 120th Infantry Regiment, established his headquarters in the town of Morta itself. The town was a small community of about 1,600 residents known for its dramatic position on the slopes of a prominent hill. From Morta, roads ran west toward Avanche and east toward the French interior.

 Hardway sent three rifle companies up to the crest of hill 314 to establish defensive positions. Lieutenant Joseph Rezer’s K Company known as King Company took positions on the northern knob of the hill near a farm called Bonvoisan. Reza was nicknamed Indian Joe by his men. A tough officer who had proven himself in the hedge fighting.

 Lieutenant Ronal Woody’s G Company covered the southwestern sector near a small chapel called Lapetit Chappelle. The chapel stood among rocks and trees, providing some cover for the soldiers digging in around it. Lieutenant Ralph Curley’s e company dug in on the southeastern slopes, occupying the highest ground on the hill.

 Curley was a lanky Texan, tough and profane, the kind of officer men would follow into fire. The soldiers had only bazookas, mortars, and their personal weapons. They had no tanks, no tank destroyers, and only a few 57 mm anti-tank guns that would prove almost useless against German heavy armor.

 The rounds from these small anti-tank guns could not penetrate the frontal armor of Panther or Tiger tanks. What they did have were two forward artillery observer teams from the 230th Field Artillery Battalion. Lieutenant Robert Weiss commanded one team from Battery B. He had joined the army in 1943 at age 20 and arrived in Normandy via Utah Beach on July 28. He was tall, strapping, idealistic, and completely unprepared for what was about to happen.

 Lieutenant Charles Barts commanded the other observer team from Battery C. Working with Barts was a 19-year-old sergeant named Frank Denius, a Texan from Athens who had joined the army at 17 and been sent to the Citadel Military Academy in South Carolina before shipping overseas. Denius had landed on Omaha Beach on June 7, the day after D-Day.

 He had already seen enough combat to earn a silver star, taking over from his left tenant, a man named Miller, who had been killed by machine gun fire right next to him near Saint Low. Dinius was barely 20 years old, but he had already experienced more combat than many soldiers saw in an entire war. On the afternoon of August 6, Weiss, Barts, and Dinius climbed hill 314 in bright summer sunshine. The hill offered a commanding view of the surrounding countryside.

 From its summit, they could see every road, every field, every possible avenue of approach for miles around. The observers spent the afternoon carefully plotting coordinates for artillery fire, assigning reference numbers to key intersections and assembly areas, preparing for an attack that everyone hoped would never come.

 I would plot out emergency barrage numbers and normal barrage numbers. Denius later explained, “Emergency barrage numbers were pinpointed on expected counterattack areas. During an attack, an observer only had to request emergency barrage number one, and the gunners would know exactly where to fire.

 They discovered a farm called La Hermitage with a well and pump that could provide water if the hot weather continued. They marked the coordinates of the main road to Avanches, the road to Saint Hillair, the crossroads below the hill. Every point that might become important was logged and assigned a reference number.

 That evening, the soldiers tried to improve the shallow fox holes left by the first division. The defensive positions were inadequate, hastily dug, barely deep enough to provide protection from artillery fire, but there was no time to dig deeper. The relief was supposed to be routine. The sun set over Normandy. The soldiers settled into their positions. Some tried to sleep.

 Others stood watch, staring into the gathering darkness, listening for any sign of trouble. At around midnight, the men on Hill 314 heard a new sound. Tank engines, lots of them, coming from the east. The clanking of tank treads warned them that something was happening.

 But in the darkness and the fog that had begun to settle over the countryside, they could not see what was coming. They could only wait. The German attack began shortly after midnight on August 7, 1944. The plan was simple. The second SS Panza Division Dasich would drive straight through Morta from the south and east, bypassing the American positions on the surrounding hills and pushing west toward Avanches.

 The second Panza division would advance on the northern flank. The 116th Panza Division would support the northern thrust. Elements of the first SS Panza division would fill gaps as needed. There would be no preparatory artillery bombardment to alert the Americans.

 The Germans would attack in darkness using speed and shock to overwhelm the defenders before they could organize resistance. The second SS Panza division struck first. German Panza grenaders advanced through the darkness, their infantry leading the tanks through the narrow roads and hedgered lanes. Soldiers shouted, “Hile Hitler as they came. A battle cry meant to intimidate the enemy and steal their own nerves.

 They quickly overwhelmed American roadblocks positioned around Morta. The 57mm anti-tank guns proved nearly useless against the German armor. The light rounds bounced off the frontal armor of the advancing tanks. American soldiers fought back with bazookas, attacking the tanks at close range, but they were outnumbered and outgunned.

 Within hours, German forces had penetrated the American lines and entered Morta itself. Lieutenant Colonel Hardaway’s battalion headquarters was overrun. Hardaway and most of his staff were captured. The battalion command post fell into German hands along with maps, communications equipment, and vital information about American positions. The soldiers on Hill 314 heard the fighting below, but could do little to help.

 Communications between the hill and the battalion headquarters were cut. They were now isolated, surrounded by German forces that had bypassed their position in the rush toward the branches. German tanks and infantry began probing the approaches to the hill, testing the American defenses. Soldiers from the 17th SS Panza Grenadier Division attacked from the east and southeast, advancing up the slopes toward the American perimeter.

They came in waves, screaming their battle cries, trying to overwhelm the defenders with speed and aggression. On the western side of the hill near G Company’s positions, German SS troops penetrated the American lines just after 1 in the morning.

 Sergeant Denius had to lie on his radio to muffle its sound, knowing that the glowing dials would make him a target in the darkness. A newly installed air cooled 30 caliber machine gun jammed at the worst possible moment, forcing the Americans to fight hand-to- hand against attackers throwing potato masher grenades. The Germans were eventually expelled, but the fight was desperate and bloody.

 Captain Reynold Ericson, commanding F Company at a roadblock near the Abaya Blanch northwest of the hill, found himself the senior officer still in contact with the companies on the summit. The Abay Blanch was a small religious complex that dominated a key intersection.

 Erikson’s men had established a defensive position there, and they fought off repeated German attempts to break through. As dawn approached and the chaos of the night battle began to sort itself out, Erikson assumed command of the defense of Hill 314, Lieutenant Colonel Hardaway was gone. Captured or killed, no one knew for certain.

 The men on the hill needed leadership, and Ericson was the only officer in position to provide it. He began coordinating what remained of the battalion’s scattered elements, piecing together the situation from fragmentaryary radio reports and messages carried by runners who risked their lives moving between positions. On the hill itself, the situation was desperate.

 German tanks and infantry surrounded the American perimeter. The soldiers could hear armor moving on the roads below. They could see flashes of gunfire in the fog, but they could not see clearly enough to engage targets with accuracy. Lieutenant Weiss could hear the approaching German forces, but could not see them through the darkness and fog.

 Working by sound alone and using the coordinates he had plotted the day before, he began calling in artillery fire on the German positions. It was an extraordinarily dangerous procedure. Artillery fire called too close could kill friendly soldiers as easily as enemy troops.

 If his calculations were wrong by even a few yards, American shells would fall on American foxholes. His calculations were not wrong. The shells of the 230th Field Artillery Battalion began raining down on the German attackers. 105 mm rounds exploding among tanks and infantry that had expected to overwhelm the American positions with ease. The artillery fire broke up the first assault, forcing the Germans to regroup, but they would be back. They had to come back.

 As long as the Americans held Hill 314, they could see everything that moved on the roads below. They could call in artillery fire on any attempt to advance toward Avanches. The German offensive could not succeed until the hill was taken. The first day of the siege established a pattern that would repeat for the next 5 days.

 The Germans attacked at dawn and at dusk, trying to take advantage of the low light to reduce the effectiveness of American observation. Each attack was met with devastating artillery fire called in by Whis and Barts and their teams. The shells fell among the attackers, killing and wounding German soldiers, destroying vehicles, breaking up formations before they could reach the American perimeter.

 When the fog cleared on the afternoon of August 7, a new factor entered the battle. Allied aircraft. American P47 Thunderbolts appeared over Morta, their massive radial engines roaring as they dove on German columns below. British Hawker Typhoons joined them, carrying eight rockets under their wings that could destroy any vehicle they hit. The 9inth Air Force flew 429 sorties that first day.

 10 squadrons of Typhoons from the British Second Tactical Air Force, flew 290 sorties, and fired over 2,000 rockets at German tanks and vehicles. I will never forget the sound of those rockets fired from the British Typhoons, Sergeant Denius later recalled. We had never heard anything like that before. The air attacks caused enormous confusion among the German forces.

 Tank crews abandoned their vehicles and fled for cover, even when their tanks had not been hit. Columns stalled on the roads as burning vehicles blocked the way forward. German commanders found it impossible to move in daylight. Any concentration of vehicles attracted immediate attention from Allied aircraft circling above.

 While postwar analysis would reveal that the actual number of tanks destroyed by aircraft was far smaller than pilots claimed, the psychological impact was devastating. German soldiers who had fought on the Eastern front, who had faced Soviet tanks and artillery and aircraft, found the constant presence of Allied air power unbearable. There was no escape from it. There was no protection. They could only hide and wait for darkness.

But none of this helped the men on Hill 314 directly. They remained surrounded, isolated, and running out of everything they needed to survive. The artillery battalions supporting Hill 314 fired an average of 2,000 shells every 24 hours throughout the siege.

 The observers on the hill controlled not just their own battalions guns, but artillery from multiple divisions and core assets, concentrating enormous firepower on any target that presented itself. While Weiss called in fire on the eastern and northeastern approaches, Denius observed German movements on the southern and southwestern slopes. I saw German infantry and tanks attacking.

 Denius later said it was the first time that we had seen that many tanks and that large a concentration attacking us. Denius spotted a large intersection on the southeastern corner below Hill 314 where the Germans were trying to either bypass the hill or attack it from behind. He and his radio sergeant, a man named Sid Goldstein, called in fire on the intersection and continued to do so throughout the battle.

 Every time the Germans tried to mass forces at that point, American shells fell among them. The Germans retaliated with their own artillery. 88 mm guns, the dreaded weapons that had destroyed so many Allied tanks and aircraft throughout the war, began firing directly at the American positions on the hill. The shells screamed in and exploded among the rocks, sending shrapnel and stone fragments tearing through foxholes.

Several rounds exploded near Weiss’s position, but the angle of fire and the huge boulders on the hilltop provided some protection. Shrapnel nipped the top of his radio antenna, but did not destroy the precious equipment. Others were not as lucky. White phosphorous shells set fires among the trees and brush, burning some of the defenders.

The acrid smoke mixed with the fog and the smell of explosives, creating a hellish atmosphere on the hilltop. By the end of the first day, ammunition was running critically low. Food was almost gone. Water supplies were contaminated or inaccessible. Worst of all, the wounded could not be evacuated, and medical supplies were nearly exhausted.

 As the hours stretched into days, the situation on the hill grew increasingly desperate. Captain Erikson ordered his men to search the bodies of their dead comrades for ammunition, collecting every round they could find. Rifles, pistols, grenades, anything that could be used to fight.

 The dead were placed in a makeshift morg among the rocks, hidden from view, so the living would not have to look at them constantly, but nothing could hide the smell. In the August heat, bodies began to decompose quickly. The stench of death hung over the hilltop, inescapable, a constant reminder of what was at stake. The soldiers had no food beyond what they could scavenge.

 French farmers from the surrounding area risk their lives to sneak supplies up to the American positions, bringing bread and vegetables through German lines. These Norman civilians knew what liberation meant. They had lived under German occupation for 4 years. They were willing to die to help the men who were fighting to free them.

 But the food they brought was never enough for 700 men. Water was an even more critical problem. The summer heat was brutal, and the physical exertion of constant combat left men dangerously dehydrated. Some soldiers resorted to drinking water from shell craters, risking illness and contamination. The well at La Hermitage, which the observers had noted on their first day on the hill, became a vital resource.

 But reaching it meant exposing soldiers to German fire. The wounded suffered worst of all. Without adequate medical supplies, men with treatable injuries died from shock, blood loss, and infection. Those who survived lay in their foxholes, unable to move, listening to the sounds of battle around them. Some called out for water.

 Some called out for their mothers. Some simply lay silent, waiting for the end. The radio batteries were failing. The SCR610 sets that Weiss and Barts carried had limited battery life, and without those radios, the forward observers could not call in artillery fire.

 Once the batteries died, the hill would lose its most effective weapon. The men did everything they could to extend battery life. They turned the radios off between fire missions. They spoke in abbreviated codes. They rationed every transmission, saying only what was absolutely necessary. Several attempts were made to resupply the hill.

 On August 8 and 9, light artillery spotter planes packed with food and supplies tried to swoop down and drop their loads on the American positions. German anti-aircraft fire drove them back before they could complete their missions. The small, slow aircraft were easy targets for German gunners. On August 10, 12C47, transport aircraft appeared over the hill in the late afternoon, dropping supplies by parachute.

 The men on the hill watched the multicolored parachutes float down from the sky. Blue and orange canopies drifting slowly earth, carrying desperately needed ammunition, food, and medical supplies. Half the bundles landed outside the American perimeter in no man’s land controlled by German snipers.

 The soldiers could see the supplies lying on the ground just beyond their positions, but they could not reach them. Anyone who tried to retrieve the bundles would be shot. Then Lieutenant Colonel Lewis Vman, commanding the 230th Field Artillery Battalion, had an idea.

 Artillery units sometimes fired shells containing propaganda leaflets over enemy positions, spreading messages encouraging German soldiers to surrender. Vimman ordered his men to remove the leaflets from these special shells and pack them with medical supplies instead. Bandages, morphine, plasma, everything the wounded on the hill desperately needed. Test shots proved the concept worked.

 The shells could be fired accurately into the center of the American perimeter, and the supplies survived the impact. The canisters split open on landing, scattering their contents across the ground where American soldiers could collect them. Two other artillery battalions began using the same technique.

 It was one of the most unusual resupply methods in the history of warfare. American gunners were literally shooting medical supplies at their own soldiers, and it was keeping them alive. The technique never fully solved the supply problem, but it bought time, kept hope alive, and showed the men on the hill that they had not been forgotten.

 On the evening of August 9, as the siege entered its third day, an SS officer climbed toward the American positions under a white flag. The German spoke excellent English. He was immaculately dressed despite the days of combat, his uniform clean, his bearing arrogant. He informed the American platoon commander who met him that the situation on the hill was hopeless. Several members of the battalion command group had already been captured.

 German forces controlled the surrounding countryside. There would be no disgrace in surrender, he continued, explaining that his commanders admired the courage the Americans had shown. They would be treated well as prisoners of war. They would receive food, water, medical care for their wounded, the fighting could end.

 But if the Americans refused these generous surrender terms, the Germans said they would be blown to bits. They had 90 minutes to respond to the offer. The platoon commander relayed the message to Lieutenant Ralph Curley, the commander of E company. Curley listened to the Germans ultimatum without expression. He was exhausted, filthy, hungry, and angry. He had watched his men die for 3 days. He had no intention of surrendering.

 Wounded soldiers lying in nearby foxholes heard the conversation. They began shouting, “No, no, don’t surrender.” Men who could barely move, men who might die without medical care, refused to quit. Curley sent the German officer back down the hill with a response that was, according to every account that survives, short, to the point, and unprintable. The exact words have been lost to history.

 Or perhaps they were simply too vulgar for official reports. The two best known books about Morta both describe Curley’s response as unprintable. Five months later, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe would deliver his famous nuts response to a German surrender demand at Baston during the Battle of the Bulge.

 That reply became legendary, quoted in every history book about the war. Curley’s response at Morta, delivered months earlier, was apparently too profane for posterity. True to their word, the Germans launched an all-out assault at 8:15 that evening, just 15 minutes after their deadline expired.

 The fighting was the most intense of the entire siege with German infantry attacking from multiple directions simultaneously. Flares lit the sky. Tracers stred through the darkness. Explosions shook the hilltop. The Americans held barely. Artillery fire called in by the observers broke up the German formations before they could overwhelm the perimeter. Small arms fire from exhausted soldiers cut down attackers who made it through the barrage.

 Hand-to-h hand fighting erupted in several places where Germans penetrated the foxhole line. By midnight, the attack had been repulsed. The Germans withdrew, leaving their dead and wounded on the slopes of the hill, but the defenders were at the breaking point. Throughout the siege, the Germans threw everything they could at Hill 314.

Infantry assaults, tank attacks, artillery bombardments, mortar barges. The 17th SS Panza Grenadier Division led most of the ground assaults against the hilltop. These were not raw conscripts but hardened veterans, many of whom had fought on the Eastern Front against Soviet forces.

 They were accustomed to hard fighting, accustomed to taking casualties, accustomed to winning. But Hill 314 broke their attacks again and again. The German soldiers could see the American positions above them. They could see the rocky slopes, the scattered trees, the foxholes dug into the limestone. It looked like terrain that could be taken with a determined assault.

 But every time they gathered for an attack, shells began falling among them. Every time they started up the slopes, artillery rounds walked through their formations, killing men who had survived years of combat. German unit commanders reported to their superiors that something unusual was happening.

 The American artillery response was too fast, too accurate, too devastating. It was as if the Americans could see everything they did, could predict every movement, could respond before the Germans had even fully committed to their attacks. They were right. From the summit of Hill 314, the forward observers could see every German formation that assembled in the areas below.

 They could see tanks moving into position. They could see infantry gathering in staging areas. They could see officers consulting maps and pointing toward the American positions, and they could call in fire before the attacks even began. Nothing worked. The fundamental problem for the German attackers was that they were fighting an enemy they could not eliminate without taking casualties they could not afford. Every assault cost men and equipment.

Every withdrawal allowed the Americans to call in more artillery fire on the roads below. The hill had become, as one German officer put it, a thorn in the flesh. German commanders grew increasingly frustrated. They had been promised a quick drive to the coast.

 Instead, they were bogged down around a single hilltop, taking losses, burning fuel, consuming ammunition, while the strategic situation grew worse by the hour. Because while the Germans focused on Mortine, the rest of the Allied armies were not standing still. Patton’s third army continued racing east and south, driving deep into France.

 British and Canadian forces pressed south from Karna. The German armies in Normandy were being squeezed into an ever tightening pocket. Hitler, far away in his headquarters, refused to accept reality. On August 9, he demanded that the attacks against Morta be renewed with greater intensity. He ordered the ninth Panza division, almost the only formation opposing Patton’s advance east from Lemon, to be transferred to Mortang to join the assault. His generals knew this was madness. Pulling forces from the south to reinforce a failed attack in the west

would only make the encirclement worse, but they obeyed because the alternative was to be relieved of command, arrested, or worse. Field marshal von Kluga trapped between Hitler’s impossible demands and military reality told his subordinates, “We have to risk everything.” But he knew the offensive had failed.

 Sitting at a table with a map spread before him, he tapped of branches with his finger and said, “This is where I lose my reputation as a soldier.” Vonug was already suspected of involvement in the July 20 assassination plot against Hitler. He knew that failure at Morta would likely mean his death. one way or another.

 A few weeks later, recalled to Berlin to face interrogation, he would commit suicide rather than face Hitler’s vengeance. General Hinrich Ebabach, commander of fifth Panza army, was ordered to form a new headquarters and lead a renewed offensive toward Avanches.

 Arriving on the battlefield with little more than a radio truck, Ebach assessed the situation and reported to Vonuga that the task was both impossible and very unpleasant. But orders were orders. The attacks continued on the hill. The days blurred together. Dawn attacks, dusk attacks, bombardments, brief periods of quiet when men tried to sleep, knowing they might be awakened by screaming German infantry at any moment. The observers kept calling in fire.

 Weiss, Barts, Denius, Goldstein. They had become the most important men on the hill, the only ones who could reach out and strike the enemy at a distance. Without them, the hill would have fallen on the first day. Their voices grew hoaro from calling coordinates into the radio.

 Their eyes burned from lack of sleep and constant strain, but they kept working, kept observing, kept directing the guns that were keeping them alive. By the morning of August 12, the sixth day of the siege, the men on Hill 314, had reached the limits of human endurance. More than 300 of the original 700 defenders were dead or wounded. Ammunition was nearly exhausted. Many soldiers had only a few rounds left for their rifles. Some had none at all.

They held their positions with bayonets fixed, prepared to fight handto hand if the Germans attacked again. The artillery forward observers were rationing their last batteries, uncertain how much longer they could continue calling in fire support.

 When the batteries died, the hill would become just another piece of ground, defensible only as long as the ammunition lasted. But the Germans had also reached their limit. Operation Lutic had failed. Despite Hitler’s demands for renewed attacks, Fonluga’s forces could not break through to Avanches. The Americans on Hill 314 had called in artillery fire on every attempt to advance, turning the roads into killing grounds.

 Allied aircraft had hammered any German movement in daylight. And while the Germans focused on Morta, Patton’s forces were swinging around their southern flank, threatening to encircle the entire German army in Normandy. The German high command finally recognized what their field commanders had known from the beginning. The attack could not succeed.

 Continuing it would only destroy more irreplaceable forces needed elsewhere. On August 11, Hitler finally acknowledged the obvious. The attack had failed. Then characteristically he blamed someone else. He accused Field Marshal Vonluj of wanting the offensive to fail.

 Before dawn on August 12, German columns began withdrawing to the north and east, abandoning their positions around Morta. The siege was over. Later that morning, led elements of the 320th Infantry Regiment, part of the 35th Division, along with soldiers from the 119th Infantry Regiment of the 30th Division itself, began climbing hill 314. They came to relieve the defenders, but they were not prepared for what they found. The hill was a charal house.

 Dead Americans and Germans lay among the rocks, some in positions that showed they had died fighting hand-to- hand. Shattered equipment littered the ground. Shell craters pocked the earth. The trees that had provided shade and cover were splintered stumps. The smell of death hung over everything.

 Wounded men who had endured nearly a week without adequate medical care lay in their foxholes, too weak to move, too dehydrated to speak clearly. Some had wounds that had become infected, blackening flesh visible through torn bandages. Some had held on only through will, refusing to die before help arrived. The relief force carried off more than 300 dead and wounded.

 370 men walked down the hill under their own power. Among them were Lieutenant Robert Weiss and Lieutenant Ralph Curley, exhausted, filthy, starving, but alive. Lieutenant Ronald Woody, commander of G Company, was so ragged and worn that when a soldier from the relief force asked for the company commander, Woody had to identify himself. The soldier was stunned to realize this dirty, exhausted figure was an officer.

 Woody’s uniform was torn and stained. His face was covered with several days of beard growth and the grime of combat. He looked more like a vagrant than a military officer. When Woody heard they were being relieved, he shouted a single word. All right. It was all he had energy to say.

 The soldiers who had survived the siege walked down the hill in silence, too tired to speak, too numb to process what they had endured. Some wept. Some stared blankly ahead. All of them carried wounds, physical or psychological, that would remain with them for the rest of their lives. Captain Ericson, who had held the battalion together through six days of combat, walked among his men, making sure everyone who could walk was accounted for. He had taken command in chaos, and had never wavered.

 His leadership had kept the defense organized when everything seemed to be falling apart. The defense of Hill 314 was over. The failure at Morta did not merely stop a German counterattack. It set in motion the destruction of the German army in France. By pushing his Panza divisions west toward Morta, Hitler had placed them in an exposed position with American forces to their south and west and British and Canadian forces pressing from the north.

 As the Germans withdrew from Morta, they found themselves caught in a tightening noose. On August 14, 2 days after the siege of Hill 314 ended, Canadian forces launched operation tractable driving south toward files. American forces under Patton were already swinging north from Lamar. The two pincers were closing on the German army. What followed was catastrophic for the Germans.

 Between 80,000 and 100,000 soldiers were trapped in what became known as the Filet’s pocket. German units that had fought successfully for years found themselves squeezed into an evershrinking perimeter, hammered by artillery from all sides, attacked constantly by Allied aircraft. The roads leading east out of the pocket became killing grounds.

 Retreating German columns were caught in the open, pounded by bombs and rockets and artillery fire. Men abandoned their vehicles and fled on foot. Tanks were left burning by the roadside, horsedrawn wagons. The primitive transport that the German army still relied on heavily were destroyed by the hundreds.

 When the pocket was finally sealed on August 21, approximately 10,000 to 15,000 Germans had been killed, 40,000 to 50,000 captured and around 500 tanks and assault guns destroyed or abandoned. The German 7th Army and Fifth Panzer Army had been virtually annihilated. General Dwight Eisenhower toured the battlefield shortly after its closure.

 It was unquestionably one of the greatest killing fields of any of the war areas, he wrote. 48 hours after the closing of the gap, I was conducted through it on foot to encounter scenes that could only be described by Dante. The stench of death was overwhelming. Thousands of bodies, human and animal, lay decomposing in the August sun.

 The dives river was choked with corpses. French civilians returning to their ruined homes stood crying and rocking back and forth as though in prayer. The German army in Normandy had been destroyed. Paris was liberated on August 25. By the end of the month, the remnants of German forces had retreated across the Sen, and the road to Germany lay open.

 Senior German officers later acknowledged what American historians would confirm. The defeat at Morta was the beginning of the end for German forces in France. And that defeat had been caused in large part by 700 American soldiers who refused to surrender a rocky hill.

 In the weeks and months that followed, the men who survived Hill 314 scattered across the European theater, continuing to fight in battles that would eventually end the war. The 30th Division moved on to capture Arkin, the first German city to fall to the Allies. They fought in the brutal battle of the bulge. They crossed the Rine and drove deep into Germany. They were still fighting when the war ended in May 1945.

 Captain Reynold Ericson, who had taken command of the defense after the battalion headquarters was overrun, received the Distinguished Service Cross for his leadership under impossible conditions. So did Lieutenant Ralph Curley, Lieutenant Joseph Rea, Lieutenant Ron Woody, and Captain Delmmont Burn.

 Lieutenant Robert Weiss continued serving as a forward observer through the end of the war. He returned home to Pennsylvania, built a career, raised a family. In 2002, more than 50 years after the battle, he published a memoir titled Fire Mission describing his experiences on Hill 314. The book became a valuable historical resource, preserving details that might otherwise have been lost.

 Weiss lived long enough to return to Morta multiple times to see the battlefield preserved as a memorial park to stand again at the observation post where he had called in artillery fire as a 21-year-old lieutenant. Sergeant Frank Deius went on to fight at Arkin and in the Battle of the Bulge.

 He earned four silver stars and two purple hearts, making him one of the 10 most decorated soldiers of the European theater. After the war, he returned to Texas, attended the University of Texas, and became a successful businessman and philanthropist. In 2012, France awarded Denius the Legion of Honor, one of that nation’s highest decorations, for his role in the liberation.

 The ceremony recognized what the French had never forgotten, that Americans had died to free their country. In 2014, on the 70th anniversary of the battle, Denius returned to Hill 314 for a ceremony honoring the 30th Infantry Division. At 89 years old, he walked up the hill with 500 local dignitaries and French towns people, retracing the path he had taken as a 19-year-old soldier.

 The people of Morta drove him through their streets in an open jeep, cheering and throwing flowers just as their grandparents had welcomed the liberators 70 years earlier. I hope that American people will always understand what freedom is and the price of freedom,” Denius said that day. “Because if you don’t, there still remain French people who can describe it for you.

” Frank Denius died in July 2018 at the age of 93. His obituary in the Washington Post described him as a soldier who helped hold a vital hill in World War II. For decades, the 30th Infantry Division’s extraordinary performance at Morta went without full recognition at the highest level.

 After the war, Army historian Colonel SLA Marshall evaluated all units that fought in the European theater and determined that Old Hickory was among the most efficient and consistent divisions in combat. He recommended the unit receive the presidential unit citation, the highest award a military unit can receive. But an army award policy change prevented the citation from being issued.

 The bureaucratic distinction denied the men the recognition they had earned with their blood. 75 years passed. Finally, on March 17, 2020, the army announced that the presidential unit citation would be awarded to the 30th Infantry Division for extraordinary heroism at the Battle of Morta. The announcement stated that this action rightfully recognizes our veterans who triumphed against incredible odds as well as those who died during a critical battle that helped ensure the Allied victory in Europe. For the handful of survivors

still living, the recognition came at last. Today, the summit of Hill 314 is a carefully preserved memorial park maintained by the people of Morton. The rocky terrain where American soldiers fought and died is now shaded by trees that have grown up in the decades since the battle.

 Visitors can walk among the remains of the fighting positions. The foxholes now shallow depressions in the earth. A black granite monument stands near the crest commemorating the soldiers of the 30th Infantry Division who gave their lives in the battle. The names of the dead are recorded there, preserved in stone.

 A memorial chapel rises from the rocky summit, built on the site where young American soldiers once huddled in foxholes, waiting for the next German attack. The chapel walls bear plaques and stained glass panels depicting the combat that took place there. The observation post where Weiss and Barts and Dinius called in artillery fire still overlooks the vital road to Avanches.

From that spot, you can still see the countryside stretching away for miles. The same view those young soldiers had when they watched German armor advancing toward them. In August 1944, General J. Lorton Collins, whose seventh core included the 30th division, later described the defense of Hill 314 as one of the outstanding small unit actions of World War II.

 The battalion had halted the left wing of the German counterattack and prevented a drive-thru to Avranche. American artillery directed from those rocky heights had once again displayed the killing prowess that made it the king of battle. Tony Jabber, a mortar gunner who served with E company under Lieutenant Curley, reflected on those six days decades later.

 I wondered if we would ever get rescued, he said. But I did not think that I would ever get killed up there. We had a company commander who would not surrender. So we were lucky. That is how decisive battles are sometimes won. Not through grand strategy or overwhelming force, but through the stubborn determination of ordinary soldiers who refuse to give up a piece of ground, through forward observers calling coordinates into dying radios, through officers who answer surrender demands with words too profane for history books, through wounded men who shout from their foxholes that they

would rather die than quit. 700 men, six days, one hill, and the course of a war changed forever. If you found this story as compelling as we did, please take a moment to like this video. It helps us share more forgotten stories from the Second World War. Subscribe to stay connected with these untold histories.

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