If done well, this could be a great movie. I have a personal story about this battle.
My dad and I did a Normandy battlefield tour back in 2008. One of the sites we visited/experienced was the Merderet bridge at La Fiere. The battle is an amazing story of well-trained, but untested US light infantry vs experienced mechanized German forces. It truly was a pivotal moment.
Interestingly, our tour guide told us the story while we walked the ground...but my Dad (a former US Army Engineer Officer) and a retired Brigadier from New Zealand started doing their own study while the guy talked. After my Dad's death, I remembered that there was some point they'd discovered that seemed to conflict with the common understanding of how the battle actually went down.
I had email contact with the Brigadier and asked if he could remember what he and my Dad had figured out that day at Merderet Bridge. Here's what he said:
Quote:
"Re the Merderet Bridge. You may recall that our tour guide made much of the skill of a captain who put together a scratch force of paratroopers and proceeded with the mission to defend the Merderet Bridge. Our guide was very complimentary about this young fellow and was able to point out where he sited his troops; most on a low ridge a couple of hundred yards back, but with two small bazooka teams located on their side of the bridge on the slopes of the escarpment to the canal. He was able to pinpoint, exactly, one of the teams as they were located in front of a concrete power pole. The stump of the pole was still there after it took a round from the attacking tanks. This particular team abandoned their position, crossed the bridge under fire, and from their new, self-selected and very exposed, position destroyed a number of German tanks, causing the surviving ones to withdraw. The bridge was held.
Well, I had my doubts, and so did your father. We didn't believe the part of the story that had to do with the captain's clever siting. A mantra of command is "question everything. Nothing in war is what it seems to be".
So I climbed over the parapet and went down to the power pole stump. Your Father leaned on the parapet and followed my progress. I got down on my belly so that I could see their actual fields of fire. Your Dad yelled out from the bridge, "You can't see anything from there can you?" He was dead right. All you could see was the scarp on the other side of the canal. The captain had stuffed up the siting completely. What is more, he had withdrawn himself and most of his people to safe location and left the real defence of the bridge to two bazooka teams (four young lads), but had placed them in an impossible position.
We concluded that the captain was not worth much, but two of the lads were worth a great deal. We decided that if we were re-writing the story, we would dump the legend, and instead demonstrate what two of the most junior soldiers managed to achieve in spite of their officer. Now this dove-tails in to the research of Brigadier S.L.A. Marshal (WWII US forces), Colonel Grossman (Vietnam US Forces), and Colonel Wigram (WWII Sicily British Forces) who deduced that only about 15 % - 20% of (trained) soldiers can bring themselves to actually engage the enemy. i.e. shoot at them with the intention to kill.
So, in citing your father, I can demonstrate that :
1. The research seems to be correct in spite of the fact that we don't want to believe it;
2. True battlefield leadership often comes from surprisingly junior soldiers (who are among the 15-20%).
3. Battle field awareness is the preserve of relatively few and here we can see that your Father, an engineer, was among these and that it can be held, just as likely, by non-infantry and other direct combat troops.
4. A commander questions everything and takes nothing as gospel. As indicated by your Father starting the conversation about the defence of the Merderet Bridge. I am able to point out that an officer of the period your Father could spot the flaw in the story immediately.
5. There are people who will always seek credit from other people's successes.
As you see, there is a lot of profit for modern professional scholars to gain from our Merderet Bridge experience, during the Battlefield Tour. To the credit of the guide, when he realized what we were doing, he did take notes. So I assume that his story has changed now."
What a great trip that was!
