743 Tank Battalion, attached to 30th Division, VII Corps, First Army.
The grinding fight through the bocage country of Normandy was a long, bloody struggle. The massive French hedgerows turned every field into a bastion, and each country lane into a tunnel in a deadly maze. Nonetheless, the Americans of 1st Army had to fight their way through. Neither infantry by themselves, nor unaccompanied tanks lasted long in bocage country. Even small German forces could
and did inflict disproportunate losses on the Americans. Only disciplined combined-forces teams were able to break the German defenses without awful losses. In this battle, combat engineers had successfully thrown a bridge across an undefended stretch of the Vire Canal. 743 Tank Battalion and infantry elements of 120 Regiment poured across the barrier, fighting a sharp action with elements of 901 Panzergrenadier Regiment in the fields around St. Fromond.
