If not, then whose were the tanks that the IR 916 reported at 0745 hours?Richard Anderson wrote:There were no tanks of the 743rd Tank Battalion "into" WN66 or "rolling up the hill" near WN70 at that hour I'm afraid. Most were concentrated along the bluff between WN 66 and WN 65, east of Les Moulins. They could not negotiate the bluffs and the AT wall at Les Moulins prevented them from getting into the draw (it was actually unreinforced concrete and easily breached, but they did not know that until later in the day). They supported the advance of the 5th Ranger Battalion and elements of the 116th over the bluffs by fire, but their movement was restricted by the arc of fire of the 88mm in WN 72 and the Belgian 75mm in the bunker on the bluff above WN72.Sheldrake wrote:There is a report in signals log of the 352nd Infantry Division timed at 07.45 hours from IR No 916: near WN 70 that three tanks were rolling up the hill; three tanks had penetrated into NW 66 and that the upper casemate of WN 62 had been put out of action by a direct hit.
This suggests that the 743 made a nuisance of themselves. It is probably that it was a tank round which silenced the 75mm gun in the upper casemate of WN62
OTOH, yes, one of the two 75mm guns at WN62 was taken out, but by one of the few DD tanks of the 741st landed, but more critically, also the 88mm in the bunker at WN61 was taken out by a Bazooka.
Although the wired defences of WN 66 were on the top of the bluff, there seem to have been positions at the bottom, near the anti-tank ditch.