The 313th Regiment moved to an assembly area near la Gosselinerie, then attacked south past Montgardon, as far as the road leading from La Surellerie to Biemont. The Regiment received heavy artillery fire continuing throughout the 8th, maintained positions but were unable to advance. In all, the 79th Division advanced […]
History
144 posts
Today, 6 July, 1944, the 313th Regiment moved to vicinity of St. Remy-des-Landes, then west and south in attempt to flank the German resistance but was repulsed by the Germans. The 1st Battalion of 313th put into reserve.
The 313th spent the night under artillery attack. This morning, 5 July, at 06:30, the 313th Regiment continued south, encountering little resistance initially. The terrain proved difficult and slowed progress while German artillery and mortar fire increased, finally forcing the Regiment to withdraw to higher position. Losses were extremely high.
Late this afternoon, 4 July, 1944, the 313th received order to attack. At the same time, German forces located the Regiment and began an artillery barrage, causing many casualties.
Today, 3 July, 1944 the 79th Division attacked. The 314th and 315th Regiments jumped off at 0530 with the 313th (and Paul Farnum) in reserve.
The Allies have secured a tenuous foothold in Normandy. VII Corps (including the 79th Infantry Division) accomplished its objective of capturing Cherbourg and securing the Cotentin peninsula. Now the Allies need to expand the beachhead, securing enough room to maneuver to enable a breakthrough attack.
Ettore Bellini (1876-1943) and Alessandro Tosi devised a much improved direction-finding system in 1907. [[1]] Their scheme deployed two orthogonal arrays similar to those of Stone. The key advantage of the Bellini-Tosi direction finder was a rotating transformer coupling. Rather than rotate a potentially large antenna system, the Bellini-Tosi system […]
A prolific inventor, Lee de Forest not only invented some of the first direction finding (DF) antenna systems, but also deserves the credit for having invented the first RF ranging system. Realizing that signal strength declines with distance, de Forest proposed inserting a variable resistor into the RF circuit to […]
In a post on Saturday (In Defense of “For-Profit” Education), I described my experience as an instructor at one of the leaders in for-profit education, ITT Technical Institute. I called it an “educational sweatshop,” a characterization which probably says more about the lackadaisical teaching demands of typical institutions of higher […]
Today, 27 June, 1944, Cherbourg surrendered. The first major objective in the Allied campaign in Northwest Europe is now complete. The German defenders inflicted great damage on the port facilities. Time will tell the extent to which the Allies will be able to restore the port of Cherbourg and begin […]
Early this morning 26 June, 1944, the 313th advanced into Cherbourg, braving snipers and clearing their sector in house-to-house fighting. By 0800, the 313th had reached the beach in their zone. Throughout the day, the 313th eliminated scattered pockets of resistance and captured hundreds of prisoners. Paul Farnum and the […]
This morning, 25 June, 1944 the 313th spent the morning on patrol. At 1400, the Regiment moved in a column of Battalions (Second – First – Third) from the high ground down to the outskirts of Cherbourg. By nightfall, the 313th occupied the position in the map below, in orange. […]
Orders for the 79th Division were to capture the strong point at la Mare a Canards. This task was left to the 314th. The Paul Farnum and the 313th Regiment veered east to attack strong points west of la Glacerie, encountering continuing opposition, and proceeded to Hameau Gringor, taking about […]
John Stone Stone (1869-1943) patented the first effective direction finding system in 1902. [[1], [2]] Stone’s scheme involved a two element antenna with a first element (V) arranged no more than a half wavelength away from a second element (V’). The Figure below shows Stone’s invention. The two elements are […]
By late night of 22nd, the 313th along with two battalions of the 314th held a line along the east-west road which crosses the Cherbourg highway at Crossroads 177 (purple line). That morning, the 313th discovered that they had been cut off by German forces to their rear, and their […]
The surrender ultimatum expired without word from the German commander of Cherbourg. Allied troops withdrew 1000 yards from the front and today, 22 June 1944, at 12:40, the Air Forces began an 8 minute attack on the German first-line positions. The 313th was to continue along the Valognes-Cherbourg highway jumping […]
Communications may have been the first commercial application of wireless technology, but Real-Time Location Systems (RTLS) were close behind. In the first few years of radio, a variety of aggressive inventors recognized the problem of RTLS and leaped to offer solutions. Some of their ideas illustrated the inventors’ misunderstanding of […]
Yesterday, 20 June, 1944 at Delasse, the 313th Regiment made contact with the German fixed defenses around Cherbourg. Throughout last night and today (21 June, 1944), patrols were sent out to feel out the enemy’s strength and to attempt to find weak spots in the line. The bulk of the […]
The 315th Regiment struggled yesterday 19 June, 1944 due to scattered resistance around the town of Valogne, so General Wyche decided to leave the 315th where it was, containing the east flank. He ordered the 314th Regiment, which had been the division’s reserve, to join the Paul Farnum’s 313th Regiment […]
The 313th Regiment Objective is the high ground west and northwest of Valognes, on the road to Cherbourg. Paul Farnum’s First Battalion forms the left of the 313th’s advance, the Third Battalion is on the right, with the Second Battalion in reserve. Support provided by artillery fires from the 314th, […]
From the “everything old is new again” department comes Tom Standage’s The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and the Nineteenth Century’s On-line Pioneers. Standage tells the story (familiar to students of electromagnetic history) of the development of the telegraph. Starting with the famous 1746 experiment of Jean-Antoine […]
Today, 18 June 1944, the 9th Division broke through German resistance to the west and reaches the coast at Barneville. This completes the immediate strategic goal of cutting off Cherbourg from reinforcement. The Allied plan is for the 79th to relieve the 90th Division. Then the 79th Division will drive […]
Here’s a selection of some of the most interesting features we’ve seen on the Internet this week: Physicist Frank Tipler observes that a couple of the most prominent physicists – including Einstein and Feynman – owe their success not so much to raw intelligence or “brightness,” but rather to an […]
The 313th Regiment was alerted today, 16 June 1944, for a possible move to meet a German counterattack, with an alternative mission to take over a large hill in the area of the 82nd to the south. Orders did not arrive.