KIA PHM Sgt Clarence H Gann and Yank Magazine

[T1gertank519]

The story of Clarence H Gann and his tattoo, “Cut on the Dotted Line”

There were lots of things like that. Men and events you'd never forget if you lived for the duration plus eternity. The "Spearhead!" burning towns in the summer darkness. Road blocks, and Jerries trailing back with their hands behind their heads. Dead Jerries, like green wax in Madame Tussaud's chamber of horrors. And our own dead. The big guy with the tattoo marking on his neck; it said " Cut on the dotted line." A sniper killed him at Liège. The men of his crew hunted down that sniper--a very unlucky superman.

 

Clarence H Gann was born July 24th, 1920, to James and Myrtle Grimes Gann in St Louis, Missouri. Clarence’s father James found work as a carpenter and his mother Myrtle contributed as a sorter at a storage plant. At just eight years old, Clarence’s father, James, died of a combination of mitral regurgitation and heart disease, leaving Myrtle, Clarence, and three other siblings to fend for themselves. In 1936, Clarence joined the army to put food on the table. He was only 16 years old. Clarence graduated high school and finished three years of college before reenlisting on June 21st, 1940. He married for the first time, but the marriage didn’t last long. Just after turning 20 years old, Clarence made the rank of sergeant. When he first arrived at Camp Polk, Louisiana, Gann spent a few days in Company D of the 36th Armored Infantry Regiment before new orders came through. In April 1941, Clarence became part of the original cadre of the 3rd Armored Division’s 703rd Tank Destroyer Battalion at Camp Polk, Louisiana. Clarence trained with the 3rd Armored through the swamps of Louisiana, deserts of California, Arizona, and Texas, and the forested grounds of Pennslyvania and Virginia. During his early service, Gann added a few tattoos to his body. One tattoo, a dotted line painted horizontally across his lower neck, also included the writing “Cut on the Dotted Line”. Little did he know, there would be a story about this tattoo someday. In 1943, Clarence married Dorothy, his second marriage. He lived with her for only six days before he had to ship out. Sergeant Gann left for England alongside the rest of the 3rd Armored Division in September 1943.

 

Now in England, Gann was one of the more competent and qualified members of the 703rd Tank Destroyer Battalion. He served in the First Platoon of Company A and was in command of the M10 Wolverine Tank A-12. Gann graduated from a London Military Combat Swim School and a reconnaissance school during his stay in England. Company A of the 703rd landed on Omaha Beach on June 29th, 1944. After passing through the razed city of Isigny, a few men volunteered to go ahead and conduct reconnaissance during the approach to St. Lo. Lieutenant Wissing, the reconnaissance officer, took Sergeants Gann, Steinhart, and Toma forward of the lines. The chosen few returned the next morning with tall tales of combat and the enemy that lay in wait. Just before pushing out from St. Lo, Gann’s vehicle A-12 spotted a railroad and German locomotive on the move. The First Platoon was ahead of many of the Germans trying to retreat. Gann ordered his gunner to “Shoot that light out!” at the head of the train. After a few rounds, the locomotive went up in flames. 

During Operation Cobra, the breakout of Normandy, the First Platoon found themselves held up by German fire outside of a fort at Cerisy La Salle, France. Early in the morning, Gann’s tank spotted a towed 88-millimeter gun and fired over a dozen rounds at it before the Germans got it stuck and blew it up themselves. Later that day, a German counterattack forced other units of the 3rd Armored Division into retreat. The infantry fell back while friendly light tanks abandoned the defense. Only two tank destroyers, Sergeant Gann's and Sergeant Barbalinardo’s vehicles, stayed in place to defend just outside of Mortain, France. Gann’s destroyer, crewed by gunner Howard W. “Okie” O’Connor and loader Bert Wooton, knocked out two German tanks and turned the tide of the battle. In one case, with Gann’s M10 Wolverine Tank Destroyer properly camouflaged, Howie O'Connor waited till the German tank tried to change his position before firing with successful penetration. For these actions on July 28th, 1944, Sergeant Clarence Gann was awarded his first Bronze Star Medal. 

 

On August 15th, Company A was positioned outside of Ranes, France. Outside of town, they straddled the road, and enemy artillery shelled the road nearly a mile to the front. The 703rd TDs moved into the woods next to the road, and a German antitank gun opened up on the column. Because the M10s were still in a column, they had trouble maneuvering to face this new threat. The German antitank gun narrowly missed two rounds before Sergeant Gann’s crew destroyed the German position with their first shot. After Ranes, the new objective was the town of  Fromental. Gann’s tank knocked out multiple German half-tracks during the advance towards Fromental. Multiple German tanks counterattacked during the advance on Fromental, and “Okie”, Gann’s gunner, knocked out two more German tanks after multiple missed shots at 1800 yards. According to the 703rd Tank Destroyer Battalion Headquarters, “One mile north of Ranes, France, Sgt Gann, Cpl O’Connor, and Pvt Wooton entered into unequal tank battle with an enemy tank. The battle group to which they were attached was held up by AT fire and coiled up to the right and left of the road. This crew observed the enemy tank causing the delay but their destroyer was in a field surrounded by thick high hedgerows, rendering fire against the enemy tank impossible, except by pulling onto the road and into its field of fire. They realized the need of a continued advance of the Battle Group so they camouflaged their destroyer with natural material at hand. They then traversed the gun to a position at right angles to the axis of the vehicle. They gradually eased the destroyer broadside onto the road until the gunner got his sight on the enemy. Sgt Gann sensed, Cpl O’Connor sighted, and Private Wooton loaded; they quickly fired seven rounds at the enemy tank and drove off the road. They were unable to confirm the destruction of the tank but it ceased firing. Later a second enemy tank drove into the same area and began firing. The same action was repeated by the destroyer crew and this time the destruction of the enemy tank was confirmed.” For the fight near Ranes on August 15th, Clarence Gann was awarded his second Bronze Star Medal for Valor. 

 

During the drive on Mons, General Collins, the Commander of VII Corps, was having some communications trouble. He wanted all units to stop to the west of Mons and wait for reinforcements before moving toward Liege. Unfortunately for Sergeant Clarence H Gann, General Collins did not get through to General Rose, 3rd Armored Division Commander in time. At Fleron, on the outskirts of Liege, Company A’s First Platoon pulled into an old coal mine. Spearhead Doughboy Infantrymen told the tank destroyer men that the showers in the mine still worked, so each man was jumping at the bit to give them a try. The GIs had not showered since late June. The showers were outside the defensive perimeter, but at least one man, Gann's driver Frank L. Walker, made the journey and returned safely. Later that morning, September 8th, 1944, Sergeant Gann folded his G.I. towel under his arm made sure his .45 in a brand new tan holster was in place, and started down toward the showers alone. Without Gann’s knowledge, a few teenage German Flak soldiers were hiding in the high growths along the path. One Flak Soldier carried an automatic pistol sidearm, probably a P08 Luger or Walther P38. At just 8 AM, this young German shot Gann three times at close range with his 9-millimeter pistol. One round hit Gann in the eye, while the other two impacted his lower jaw. Clarence suffered a crushed skull and fractured mandible. Maybe Gann saw the teenage soldiers or one of these youths lost his nerve. Sergeant Clarence H Gann, who had served for more than seven years in the Army and was a recipient of two valor medals, was dead at 24. Another man from First Platoon described Gann as the “finest soldier I ever knew”. Clarence had been married only one year. According to Clarence Gann’s loader, Bert Wooton, that young Flak Soldier killed Gann and then tried to surrender. When the German culprit stood up, Clarence Gann’s crew ensured he found a place on the ground alongside their dear tank commander Gann. Later that day, Spearhead Doughboys from the 36th Armored Infantry found 12-15 Germans hiding in the mine. Despite Gann’s death, the war had to go on. “Okie” O’Connor became the tank commander of A-12, and Bert Wooton became the new gunner. In the day’s after-action report, Company A’s Commander, Captain Cole, reported that “Sergeant Clarence H. Gann, an outstanding gun commander, of ‘A’ Co, had been killed by enemy small arms fire.” 

 

Gann’s death according to A-12’s (Gann’s Tank) Driver Frank Leroy Walker: 

“It was, I think, around Mons. We hadn’t had a bath or cleaned up or anything like that, but we had a, got into a mine where they had showers. We went into there and they started on us with DDT. This place was a… well they used donkeys to pull this coal out of the mine. So they put us GIs all in a tent and told us to drop our trousers, all our clothes. Take off all your clothes and shoes, socks, everything. BAM! And close your eyes- hold your breath. And they sprayed us with DDT! And then we went on, right on into the showers. We went in and took a shower and coming back out, my Sergeant, my TD gun Sergeant, was killed by a sniper. Gann was killed then.”

 

Clarence Gann’s story does not end there. One member of Company A, Sergeant Frank Woolner, had many talents. While acting as a reconnaissance Sergeant in combat, Frank also wrote articles for newspapers and magazines like Stars and Stripes and Yank Magazine. Many of these stories were about the 3rd Armored Division or men Frank had known. Frank successfully published an article talking about Clarence Gann’s death in a December 1944 issue of Yank Magazine. Woolner wrote Dead Jerries, like green wax in Madame Tussaud's chamber of horrors. And our own dead. The big guy with the tattoo marking on his neck; it said " Cut on the dotted line." A sniper killed him at Liège. The men of his crew hunted down that sniper--a very unlucky superman. Long after the war, multiple men from Company A kept photos of Clarence Gann and inscribed the words “Cut on the Dotted Line” on each picture. 

 

Sergeant Clarence H Gann returned home to Missouri in 1949 and rests today at Jefferson Barracks National Cemetery. Army Graves Registration found a wedding ring, knife, and European coins on Clarence and returned these possessions to his family. Clarence’s mother, Myrtle, wrote to many men from Company A, finding closure from Clarence’s comrades after his death. A few of the newly-retired GIs from First Platoon visited Myrtle at home in Missouri after the war. Clarence’s wife Dorothy remarried 2 years after his death. Clarence was forever missed by his mother, two brothers, sister, and many friends. Clarence Gann’s family obituary ends: “A precious one from us has gone, A voice we loved is stilled; A place is vacant in our home, which never can be filled.” 

 

 

 

 

Full Yank Magazine Article

"The Spearhead's" TDs

 

 

BY SGT. FRANK WOOLNER, 3AD

Combat correspondent, Div. HQ

 

Inside Germany - There was moonlight. The air was cold and fresh, and it reminded you of winter time at home. There was the same curved bowl of blue-green sky, the same stars winking frostily. The ground crunched pleasantly under your feet, and the apple trees which covered this little clearing might have been growing in old New England. You walked in memory at this moment, almost expecting to jump a woodcock in the half light. The clear cold was soothing after the raw weather, but it linked a bitter chain of circumstances which added up to the soldier's ever-present pang of loneliness.

 

This wasn't New England. On the horizon was a steady flickering, like heat lightning, only it was cold-white, and the thunder came jumping back in spasmodic crumps of sound. You looked more closely through the little orchard now, and you could see the backdrop of war. Tank destroyers crouched in the gloom, low-slung silhouettes with impossibly long guns jutting from their angular turrets. Even as you watched the big steel machines, they opened fire, first one and then another, in a succession of ear-splitting blasts. The rippling spout of white flame seemed to imprint itself on your eyes after it had been dissipated to drifting smoke. Your ears sang with the reverberations of the big 90mm guns; and the loneliness suddenly was gone - the present had reasserted itself.

 

This was Germany in the winter of 1944, and here was a platoon of a Tank Destroyer Battalion, attached to the 3rd Armored Division. There was a guy sitting here on the trunk of an apple tree which had been toppled by enemy fire. His name was Cpl. George Harland, and his home was in Housatonic, Massachusetts. George had evidently been lost in nostalgia, too, because he said, " Nice night for fox hunting, isn't it? "

 

And because you used to hunt foxes on nights like these, over the same choppy hills of New England, you slipped into a perfect understanding with this guy who was a gunner of a deadly war machine.

 

"Anything doing?" you asked, sitting down on the apple log.

 

"Not much. We're firing indirect and reaching out pretty far. That last serenade registered at nearly maximum range. There hasn't been much incoming mail. Got a few rounds from a Jerry railway gun last night, but I think the Thunderbolts got him."

 

Harland is an easy going Joe. His blue eyes are gentle and he speaks slowly, without using profanity. He doesn't talk about the scores of German vehicles he has blasted into rust-colored junk, or about the Mark-V that nearly left him at Fromental forever. Veterans don't boast about these things. They say mildly, "Nothing much doing," but if you sit around and bat the breeze, high adventure inadvertently creeps into the conversation. Steel and fire and death are the hallmarks of the armored forces, but the tankers and tank destroyers of our Army like to forget that. They'd rather talk about football back in '39, or what the Dodgers are doing-or how foxhounds might run a red fox on a night when moonlight etches run-down apple trees with silver. In a way this is as it should be. The tired guys who man our weapons are fighting for such privileges.

 

Here, beyond the Siegfried Line, these big tank destroyers were dropping shells up to maximum range from their reeking muzzles. In one twelve-hour period a platoon of the weapons had fired 480 rounds. They were M-36s equipped with a 90mm gun - four to a platoon, fast and maneuverable, each packing a wallop sufficient to sieve the heaviest tank in the world.

 

Jerry had reason to dislike these TDs. Led by a 27-year-old Lt. Colonel, Wilbur E. Showalter, of Kingman, Kansas, the battalion had harried Jerry across France and Belgium, wrecking his armor and self-propelled guns at ranges of anything from 25 yards to sight distance. They'd waylaid the panzers time and again, ambushed German motorized columns, played havoc with the enemy at countless load blocks from Perriers to Aachen. Now, when the American drive paused temporarily, to bring up supplies and to straighten the line before launching that all-out attack which would mean " Germany Kaput," these identical tank destroyers dropped back and supported the artillery as though they had been just waiting for this moment. It was hard on Jerry, but it wasn't news. Tank destroyers have always been a bitter pill for supermen to swallow.

 

This battalion came ashore in Normandy with the 3rd Armored Division, and went into action at St. Jean de Daye, France, in time to help smash a German counter-attack which was designed to reach the sea at Isigny. The 3rd became famous as an outfit that helped to spearhead the entire United States First Army forces from the breakthrough sector of Perriers-St. Lô to the Siegfried Line, making the most spectacular advance of the western campaign in an 18-day dash from the Seine to the German border. The Tank Destroyer Battalion was there in the dust and grime of that long attack. It shared the 3rd Armored Division's well-earned sobriquet: "The Spearhead."

 

A tank destroyer is a big vehicle. It looks like an underselling, angular tank, and it weighs 32 tons on the prowl. If you haven't studied your silhouettes, well, you might take it for a German panzerwagon. The gun is exceptionally long; and there, in fact, is the explanation of so much weight on a relatively thin-skinned vehicle - that wicked shooting iron and the counterbalance which allows smooth tracking.

 

The TD is not a tank. It has an open turret and a thin skin, in comparison to the hide of a Sherman or Mark-V. Fast, and extremely maneuverable, the M-36-can outslug any tank in the world, but in a duel with armor it would fare very badly. This sounds like a contradictory statement, but it isn't. While the heavy 90mm weapon of the TD will destroy anything on wheels or tracks, it must do so from a concealed position or suffer the consequences of a hit which would certainly pierce its inadequate armor. The motto of Tank-Destroyer Command is: " Seek-Strike-Destroy." Officers of this new branch of the Service add: "But never duel!"

 

TDs stalk their game like the black panther, which is their shoulder flash, and direct fire against enemy armor, which is the primary mission of these bulky looking but deceptively fast vehicles. They are, however, versatile, and may be used in other capacities.

 

Here in this little orchard, under a pale winter moon, the men who helped to bring the blitz back to Germany were practicing one of those secondary roles - that of indirect fire in support of field artillery. After the hectic, never-ending attack across France and Belgium, it was tame pursuit.

 

The billowing, acrid dust of France was in the nostrils of these men. Imprinted on their souls were the night marches and the slashing, triple-pronged attacks where tank and tank destroyer slugged it out at negligible range. They'd strewn the rust-colored carcasses of Hitler's panzer armies all along the road from Normandy to the Siegfried Line. They'd dueled with enemy armor in violation of every principle set down by tank destroyer command - because it was necessary, and because many things were done that way in order to further the rapid drive at all costs.

 

Naturally, there were casualties. One does not engage and defeat the Wehrmacht's elite without paying a price. They'd killed the enemy, and the enemy had struck back savagely even as he died. These campaign-toughened TD troopers remembered their dead. You can see that memory in the face of a seasoned soldier. It is in his mind, in his' tired eyes. You can easily note the transition in such a man from a relatively soft spirit of competition to quiet hate. A veteran knows no wave of sympathy as the bullet strikes home or the shell smashes a vehicle and its occupants to blood and tangled metal. It's kill or be killed. Death to the enemy, and elation as he falls.

 

There were things you couldn't forget. Like the dead in the ditches of Normandy, or the flaming action at Rânes and Fromental. Here, while British forces drove south to clamp shut the Argentan-Falaise pocket, 3rd Armored Division troops cut to the very center of the Nazi elite elements under von Kluge. The TDs fought gun to gun with heavily armored panzers. A Sergeant Commander named Juno met two of these wickedly efficient enemy vehicles at a bend in the road - smashed them both into smoking junk before they could lay on his thin-skinned destroyer. Then, when the wounded enemy soldiers cried for help, Juno left the safety of his destroyer to aid them. He was killed immediately in the explosion of burning ammunition.

 

It was the law of speed and hot steel in France. It was running vehicles beyond all the applied principles of maintenance, whipping them forward and praying' that they would hold up under the strain. They held. The engineering wizardry of Detroit made that hell-for-leather drive possible, and its very speed insured success. German forces were caught off balance and their storied organization disrupted completely. At Mons, in Belgium, an estimated 40,000 Wehrmacht troops were killed or made prisoner by the American 3rd Armored and 1st Infantry Divisions. One platoon of tank-destroyers, on road-block in that anoint city of battle, destroyed twenty German vehicles in a six-hour period. Sgt. Muriel F. Lehman, of Marissa, Ill., accounted for most of them, he and Sgt. Arthur Parnell, of Boston, Massachusetts, with their respective crews.

 

Mons may well have been the beginning of Germany's modern twilight of the gods. The thousands of troops killed and captured here had been counted upon to hold the Siegfried Line. They met the American "Spearhead" instead; part of them blundered into the tank destroyers of Lehman's platoon. There was a vicious battle in the narrow streets. Tank destroyer guns sent bolts of livid flame lashing into armored halftracks and dual purpose anti-aircraft guns. Cpl. Frank Karpinski of Scranton, Pa., leaned on his panoramic sight and destroyed two vehicles with one projectile. A column of flame, mushrooming out of the dark target, disclosed the German crewmen twisting and struggling in the fire like puppets on strings.

 

When dismounted German troops fired from a building nearby, Cpl. Jack Moriarity, of Arlington, Mass., set the place aflame with his 50 caliber gun. When the score was totted up it revealed the fact that Hitler had lost twenty armored vehicles, plus crews, and an undisclosed number of dismounted troops to one platoon of tank-destroyers. There were no TD casualties.

 

A German officer, wounded in the action, told Sgt. Lehman, "You Americans don't know how to fight. All you want to do is slaughter us."

 

"You're damned right," Lehman growled, "I learned the trade from your panzers in Normandy."

 

It was hard to become excited over indirect firing after the sort of action this group had been through. Although German artillery registered frequently on their positions, it wasn't hot, flashing action of the "Spearhead "in attack. Men ducked into their foxholes now, and cursed the artillery, but they came out again soon and laughed at the inaccuracy of the Jerry gunners. It wasn't like that at Fromental, in France.

 

There was no laughter at all in Fromental, but there was plenty of blood and sorrow. There was a little 2nd Lieutenant there, named Richard Ferchaud, from Baton Rouge, La. They remembered him all right. Because the tank destroyer men were all older than the little Lieutenant, they called him "Junior." After he led them in action they changed the name; it became "Little Blood and Guts." Ferchaud challenged a Mark-V at Fromental and lost a TD in the action. He lost part of, his jaw, too, and went to the rear gamely trying to persuade a medic to release him. He was all right, he said. The men say that he certainly was all right! The Mark-V is still at Fromental, incidentally; it is rusty and blackened, with a big ragged hole in its four-inch frontal armor.

 

There were lots of things like that. Men and events you'd never forget if you lived for the duration plus eternity. The "Spearhead!" burning towns in the summer darkness. Road blocks, and Jerries trailing back with their hands behind their heads. Dead Jerries, like green wax in Madame Tussaud's chamber of horrors. And our own dead. The big guy with the tattoo marking on his neck; it said " Cut on the dotted line." A sniper killed him at Liège. The men of his crew hunted down that sniper--a very unlucky superman.

 

The tank destroyers had come a long way since the surf of Normandy had baptized their Spinning wheels and tracks. New replacements laced the outfit together, but a majority of the old men remained. They were, you thought, all like Harland, more or less.

 

Harland still sat on the apple log, frowning when the whiplash concussion of the 90's interrupted his speech. He said again: "Nothing much doing," and added, "I wish we'd attack and get it over with."

 

His platoon had just finished winging 480 big 90mm shells on the way to disrupt German communication lines, but he didn't think that was very spectacular.

 

You walked away presently, through the little orchard of apple trees, back to the road and a waiting Jeep. Your-feet crunched deep in the frosty ground, and the moon was so bright that it cast a shadow before you. The big guns of war flickered and thundered, but it was mostly in the distance and, like George Harland, your thoughts again slipped into the groove of nostalgia. Perhaps he was right. It would be fine to get going - to get it over with and to go home.

 

What a night to run a pack of Walkers on a big dog fox.

 

 

[Allan H.]

What a great tribute! Well written! Thank you very much for sharing this group and telling the "cut along the dotted line" story.

 

Allan

[T1gertank519]

34 minutes ago, Allan H. said:

What a great tribute! Well written! Thank you very much for sharing this group and telling the "cut along the dotted line" story.

 

Allan

Thank you for taking the time to read his story as well! 

[TO4thIDWW2]

Awesome grouping ! Very nice researches and tribute ! Thanks for sharing, Preston. 

 

T.O

[fj35]

Hello 

 

Very nice and interesting grouping. I'm also interested by units of the 3rd Armored Division. I leave near Mortain and Fromentel . Hight combat areas for that units.

 

THanks David