La Fiere Causeway - In his own words

[Kandu]

This is not exactly a book review but rather the review of a personal letter written by Cpt. "Red Dog" Dolan in 1959. It is a great personal description of his 'A' companay, 505th PIR on D-Day and D+1 relating to the seizure and defence of the la Fiere bridge. Captain Dolan's letter lays to rest some questions about the tank attacks along the causeway. He records defending against two attacks by armour, three tanks on D-Day and two tanks on D+1. All were destroyed, two by bazookas and three by the 57mm A/Tk gun under his command. That left 5 dead German tanks on the causeway of which a subsequent photographer captured only three clearly. Dolan was uncertain of the tank types. His best guess was a 'lighter version of PzKpfw IV' (my paraphrase of his words). While the photo shows two Renault R-35 and one Hotchkiss, the claim that a piece of wreckage and a broken track belonged to a PzKpfw III is credible based on Dolan's estimate, Dolan's description that the bazookas blew the track off the first tank, and that Panzer-Ersatz-und-Ausbildungs-Abteilung 100 included one Pz III in its second Zug and two more such as command tanks. The source below also includes a number of scans of newspaper clippings. Great stuff.

Source: www.505rct.org/album2/dolan_j.asp. This is a great source for little and personal details about the 505th PIR during WW2

 

[Kandu]

There are two other personal accounts on the same site. One by one of the bazooka men who knocked out two German tanks on the causeway. A road on the west side of the Merderet River bears his name today. The other by Cpt. Rae who led the follow up attack across the causeway and was later inappropiately credited as being the first across.