The cleaning of Vierville, St-Laurent and Louvières
by the 115th and 116th Regiments on June 7 and 8
The cleaning work in Vierville and St-Laurent took most of the day.
In Vierville, the early morning enemy counterattack had not been very vigorous and after a moment of anxiety when the Genie retreated from the Ormel to the village, the situation had been restored by bringing back four Rangers companies and a few tanks.
The Americans then understood the need to clean up the entire agglomeration, where they had only limited forces.
The cleaning, carried out by 4 companies of Rangers, concerned all the houses in the village and the separated neighborhoods, the Ormel, the Isles, the mansion of Than, the wood of the castle, etc... with control of civilian populations. It was during these operations that large houses too difficult to search and empty of their inhabitants (the mansion of Than, the Isles, L'Ormel in particular) were burned.
In Saint-Laurent, the 2/116 cleaned the descent of the Moulins (D3) of all its snipers, in order to open it to road traffic.
The 3/116 took care of the St-Laurent cliff towards Vierville, to clean it of snipers and last resistance. The battalion, scattered between St. Lawrence and the Ruquet, was only partially gathered, it found some machine gun nests still in action and took some prisoners.
Then these 2 battalions crossed Vierville and left for Louvières, but after hard fighting, at 5 p.m. they ret for the night in a tight defensive perimeter around Vierville while protecting the beach and the General Staff of the 29th division.
On the morning of June 8, General Gerhardt ordered 2/116 and 3/116 to advance towards Grandcamp to join 1/116 and launch a new attack against the Pointe du Hoc where Rangers were still isolated.
For its part the battalions 1/115 and 3/115 had bivouaced on the evening of June 6, south of St. Lawrence.
After an intense naval bombardment, 3/115 was charged with reducing the fortified point WN 67 blocking the St-Laurent intersection. He only met isolated shooters there. At 9 a.m., St-Laurent was released and the 3/115 walked on Vierville, followed by the 1/115.
Approaching Vierville and receiving the news that they were no longer needed, they swayed south, always on foot, carrying heavy weapons, direction Longueville through fields. They were then stopped east of Louvières by a small enemy opposition.
South of Vierville, the battalion 2/115 had to largely bypass Vierville from the South and also go to Longueville. Progress was very slow. The connections were working very badly and the 3 battalions of the 115th were out of contact with each other almost all day. In Vacqueville, a small enemy force used the stone farms of the hamlet as defenses and held the battalion with small arms fire until late in the afternoon.
The C battery of the 110th Campaign Artillery Battalion, available for support, fired two volleys without being spotted from positions near St-Laurent, thus helping the 2/115 to clean the hamlet.
At 7:30 p.m., the 2/115 battalion was able to resume its progress which continued all night to reach Montigny at 3 a.m. on June 8. It was a defensive area with trenches and barbed wire (one of the German campaign artillery batteries, which had done so much damage on the beach on June 6), but empty of enemy, because the artillery battery had to fall back the night before.
In conclusion, the 115th regiment remained very disabled all day, with bad transmissions, without car transport and carrying its ammunition and heavy weapons. It was only on June 8 that the Louvières area could be definitively secured.