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Below are the most memorable excerpts from the text
of the above talk, as selected by the Web Editor.
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With the cleaning up of the Paderborn area, it was assumed
that General Hickey would continue as division commander, but
shortly thereafter Major General Ernest A. Harmony, old gravel
voice, arrived. His aide came to my office and announced that
Harmon was taking command of the division. My reply was equivocal
but inwardly my mind was saying: What the hell?
Harmon, in his memoirs, says that Bradley asked him to step down
from his corps assignment and take command of the 3rd Armored
but that he found that Hickey was so efficient that he notified
Bradley that no change was necessary.
General J. Lawton Collins, in his autobiography, paints a
different picture. He says Bradley made the change in command
without asking him and that he protested to Bradley and had Hickey
confirmed. It was a good move. Hickey went on to become chief
of staff to both Generals MacArthur and Ridgway in the Pacific
during the Korean War.
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After the war, Reichmarschall Hermann Goering, then a prisoner,
was queried as to why the Germans had not used chemical warfare
- poison gas - freely. It was simple, he said, they had no gas
masks for horses and the principal transport for German infantry
divisions was horsedrawn. Should they have used gas, we would
have retaliated and crippled their transport.
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At Dessau was a German engineering school and these fought
as hard as any we encountered. Others, located between Mulde
and Elbe Rivers, would come over under a white flag and ask us
to help them fight the Russians. "No," they were told,
"you must surrender."
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Another discovery was made in the Harz mountain area, this
by one of Capt. Ted Black's CIC special agent Tod Collins and
being the entire files of the SS personnel for Germany, hidden
in a chalet at the Kyffhausenbund (like our American Legion)
retreat in the Harz mountains. These were turned over to Army
G-2 and what happened to them afterwards we would never know.
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By March 26th the breakthrough was total and on the 27th we
made 22 miles to jump the Dill River, 21 miles the next to Marburg,
an old university town. En route, MacDonald says, we overran
several German hospitals with more than 5,600 soldier patients
and took another 10,000 prisoners. The German prosthetic devices
were more advanced than ours.
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Back to the Remagen bridge crossing, the main event, this
was the site of one of the biggest collection of anti-aircraft
artillery in the war, and the Germans used everything they had,
including jets.
A little local color here - Richard G. Johnson of Shreveport
was a captain in our air corps in WW II with light bombers. Before
the Ludendorf bridge at Remagen was taken he led a flight in
bright daylight and nearly unopposed, the mission to bomb) the
bridge. "As we approached," he said, "something
told me to release the bombs and I gave the order for bombs away
and all missed the target!" How about that for luck?
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The idea of Rhine crossings had been a part of planning going
back to the fall of 1944, when engineers began stacking large
aluminum johnboats around Spa, First Army headquarters.
Fortuitously, 9th Armored Division of First Army took Remagen
bridge, nearly intact, March 6th.
Meanwhile, Montgomery had been assembling under his 21 Army Group
a million and a quarter men, about 5500 field pieces, including
three armies, and planning a parachute jump and aerial bombing
of the far shore of the Rhine. Though headquarters gossip, it
was understood that he was going to show you colonials how to
make an opposed river crossing.
Well, Monty made his river crossing and spectacular it was.
Churchill cone up and pissed on the dragons teeth and everyone
had a jolly good time.
But by this time even George Patton had made a Rhine crossing
and the action had gotten a little passe.
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It was at this time that the Hohenzollem bridge, back of the
cathedral, was blown. The writer had taken several war correspondents
to the tower of a very modem Roman Catholic church downstream
and inland, with afforded an excellent site for the demolition,
which was truly spectacular.
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After the Bulge, it was good to return to Walfriede Haus overlooking
Stolberg and our old CP for division headquarters. Ahead lay
the problem of crossing the Roer river. During the fall of 1944,
Capt. Felix R. DeLeo and his Photo Intelligence team No. 38 had
been using air photos to mark the development of the German defenses
across the Roer, starting with foxholes, then connected foxholes
and a whole trench system.
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Communications with friendly air on location of frontline
troops remained a problem, witness drops on 30th Infantry Division
troops by B-26 Marauders and later B-24 bombers on the 291st
Engineers at Malmedy. The 3rd Armored also felt this at Grandmenil
and before.
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New weapons in the Ardennes ... A limited supply of tank destroyers
with 90mm guns to our 703rd Tank Destroyer Battalion made a world
of difference when available, as with firing at Peiper across
the Salm River.
Also, acquisition of the Pozit - radio operated - fuse for our
artillery afforded present air bursts making trenches unsuitable.
A "serenade" by our artillery, several batteries firing
in unison, each with a target sector, was an awesome thing.
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In a lighter vein, it is recalled that in the fighting for
Aachen the 1st Infantry had captured a large quantity of German
ammunition and munitions, along with a streetcar and a high hill,
whereupon they loaded the streetcar with munitions, lit a fuse
and pushed it down the hill. No damage to the enemy was done
but the soldiers enjoyed it greatly. A similar effort by the
3rd Armored involving a raft floating down through Stolberg was
equally unavailing.
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While we were in the Stolberg area and with our division CP
in Walfriede Haus overlooking Stolberg, Secretary of the Treasury
Henry Morgenthau had gone on the radio, stating that Germany
on being conquered would have to be reduced to an agricultural
status, minus industry. Up until that time we had been having
a few prisoners come over after nightfall every night, holding
the "passports" sent them via artillery. Immediately
after Morgenthau's talk, Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda chief,
also got on the microphone and said, in effect, "I told
you so!" POWs now had to be gotten the hard way - by capture.
The volunteer ones ceased.
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