Severloh was assigned to a Senior Lieutenant Bernhard Frerking as an orderly. While Frerking coordinated the artillery fire of the battery at Houtteville from a bunker, Severloh says he manned a MG 42 machine gun, and fired on approaching American troops with the machine gun and two Karabiner 98k rifles; while a sergeant whom he did not know, kept him supplied with ammunition from a nearby ammo bunker until 15:30. He claimed to have fired over 13,500 rounds with the machine gun and 400 with the rifles.