| |
The Background of Major Gen. Rose
Even at this late date questions have arisen as to the death
of Major General Maurice Rose.
According to Dan Regan, writing for Stars and Stripes on
3 April 1945, 11 American generals were killed in action during
the war up to that time, with eight others who died in plane
crashes, eight missing and 19 prisoners of war, but none listed
who died in combat at the head of their attacking divisions.
Senior #1 as to these losses was, of course, Lieutenant General
Leslie J. McNair, commanding general of the Army Ground Forces,
who lost his life July 25, 1944 in the Cobra bombing operation
which preceded the breakout in Normandy, when fragment and high
explosive bombs from 35 heavy bombers and 42 medium bombers fell
in U.S. lines, creating temporary havoc among the waiting troops
and resulting in numerous casualties. But McNair was there by
choice and in a non command role.
Who was Maurice Rose? He commanded the 3rd Armored Division,
one of two heavy armored divisions (the other was the 2nd) and
had since August 7 of 1944, and since then had formed the spearhead
of Major General J. Lawton Collins' VII Corps of Lieutenant General
Courtney H. Hodges' 1st Army. Of Rose, Collins said, "Maurice
was the top armored commander in the army when he was killed."
Of Collins, Omar N. Bradley, 12th Army Group commander, said,
"Collins had proved himself the ablest of all our five corps
commanders." Further, Bradley had this to say of 1st Army,
"Hodges' 1st Army had borne the brunt of the really tough
fighting. Man for man, unit for unit, they were superior to any
army on the western front." Collins, of course, later became
a very young Army Chief of Staff.
That will tell you something as to who Maurice Rose was. At
the time of his death, his division east of the Rhine, had just
moved more than 100 miles in one day to form the enveloping arm
of what was soon to become an encirclement of the industrial
Ruhr Valley. Ahead of him a few miles was Paderborn, citadel
of the German armored force, where the panzers committed to the
Ardennes had trained. Paderborn was the Fort Knox of the Reich.
Rose was accustomed to leading his division from the front
and it was a source of concern to Collins, who was no shrinking
violet himself as to where he placed his command post. The preceding
fall, with the 3rd Armored command post facing the Meuse River
at Namur and the Germans across the river, Collins had severely
reprimanded Rose. During the Bulge he had Rose move his command
post from Manhay, and just in time. In the drive to Cologne,
on 3 March, a roving German assault gun cast a shell in our direction,
a fragment not only striking the situation map of division headquarters,
but landing directly on the encircled objective of the day. Collins
had the command post moved back then. At that time Collins said,
"Maurice, do you always have to have your command post in
an exposed house at the very end of a small town?" To this
Rose replied, "General, there is only one way I know to
lead this division, and that's at the head of it!"
A few days before his demise and before the division made
the left hand 90 degree turn from Marburg toward Paderborn, a
wandering German self-propelled gun had thoroughly punctured
the general's caravan, his quarters mounted on a two and one-half
ton truck. Brigadier General Truman E. Boudinot, one of his two
combat (brigade) commanders, had shortly before left the vehicle.
Upon initially taking command of the division, General Rose
would visit the front lines in a jeep with his aide dc camp.
Major Robert M. Bellinger of Brooklyn, NY, and his driver, T/5
Glen Shaunce, now of Hollandale, Minnesota. As time went on Rose
would be joined by his artillery commander. Colonel Frederic
J. Brown, a West Pointer, which Rose was not, and being of part
Blackfoot Indian blood. These two, Rose and Brown, made a pair.
They were simpatico, the Indian warrior and the son of a rabbi.
At times it seemed if one would almost dare the other as to a
more dangerous exploit.
Forward of Maulsbach, on a lonely stretch of road near Rehe,
Rose flushed out a group of about 15 Germans. Soon joined by
Colonel Brown and his driver, Private First Class, A.C. Brazeal,
the five of them fought outnumbered the opposing enemy, using
pistols and sub-machine guns in, appropriately, a cemetery. Of
the enemy, 12 had surrendered by the time an armored car and
two motorcycles arrived. Corporal James Omand, now of Sacramento,
CA, said that it was quite a sight seeing General Rose herding
prisoners down the road with his .45 pistol.
Division Strength at Over 3,000 Vehicles
Mention has been made of Marburg, for it was at this old university
town that the 3rd Armored swung north for its long march. Besides
the division headquarters there were two Combat Commands, A and
B, the former commanded by Brigadier General Doyle 0. Hickey,
the other by Brigadier General Truman E. Boudinot. These corresponded
to brigades. A third headquarters was formed around that of the
36th Armored Infantry Regiment, Colonel Robert L. Howze, Jr.
commanding, for a Combat Command R or Reserve.
Tank strength centered on the 32nd and 33rd Armored Regiments,
Colonels Leander L. Doan and John C. Welborn, respectively, commanding.
Each regiment had three battalions of 54 tanks each. principally
medium Shermans. Recently a few heavy tanks, the Pershing, had
been received and with its 90mm gun, it was more of a match for
the famed Tiger VI and the more plentiful, but equally deadly
Mark V Panther, the latter with a very long barrel 75mm gun.
German tanks had consistently outgunned our Shermans, and
in addition had faced hardened armor. However, when the original
short barrel 75mm guns were replaced as available with the three
inch naval gun, the chances of a Sherman tank surviving were
increased. In all other aspects the American tanks were better,
the motors were more dependable, the tracks lasted longer, the
turret turned more smoothly and quickly, we had optical sights
which were better and gyroscope stabilizer for the main gun.
All of this General Rose had reported to the War Department in
a classified letter.
Centers of attack strength in the 3rd Armored were the Task
Forces, usually comprising a tank battalion, an infantry battalion,
with artillery support and detachments of medics and engineers,
commanded by regimental or battalion commanders of proven experience.
As the division turned to the left at Marburg on 28 March,
Howze's Combat Command R was on the left flank, from which prior
greater resistance had come, with Boudinot's Combat Command B
to the right, both screened by Lieutenant Colonel Prentice Yeloman's
83rd Reconnaissance and with Hickey's Combat Command A, in two
columns, as reserve.
With more than 3,000 vehicles, the division took up a lot
of road strength, what with added antiaircraft and tank destroyer
units attached. In addition, the engineers had a bridging column
besides bulldozers and road equipment.
The Long March to Paderborn
This day, 29 March, all resistance encountered was brushed
aside or bypassed. The day began at 6 a.m. (0600 Army time) when
at this time of day the sun was not really up, and ended at 10
p.m. although Task Force Hogan, that's Samuel Hogan of Pharr,
Texas, fought all night. The advance was in four columns and,
according to the division history, to reach from one column to
another, use had to be made of Piper Cub artillery spotter planes.
By passed resistance made nuisances of themselves for supply
trucks and weakly armed troops. By the end of the day combat
elements had moved 75 miles, units to the rear more than 90.
It was the longest advance in one day of the war for the 3rd
Armored and, probably, any unit since Normandy.
After this day the quip was made that we had cleared the Germans
to the edge of the road, and it was about true. A liaison officer
took a platoon of light tanks to reach the headquarters of the
1st Infantry Division.
To the right of Task Force Hogan was Task Force Richardson,
that is Lieutenant Walter B. Richardson of Beaumont, Texas, led
an attack which went through Brilon where, initially, he was
unaware that his men had collected and consumed a quantity of
champagne. Champagne or not but with three of the new Pershing
tanks, Richardson reached within 15 miles of Paderborn by the
end of the day. It was found that the heavy tanks were not as
fast as the Shamans and lagged behind, when they were most needed
at the head of the column with their larger guns.
The U.S. advance had not escaped the notice of the Germans,
whose intelligence service was good.
We were on the point of encountering a force comprised of
students from the SS Panzer reconnaissance training battalion
and an SS tank training and replacement regiment beefed up with
an SS replacement battalion of about 60 Tiger and Panther tanks
called the SS Ersatzbrigade Westfalen. Anyone who has had ersatz
bread knows what that means. The troops themselves were not ersatz,
these Germans were the real thing. At the beginning the German
reconnaissance unit was ordered to hold a line from Helmem to
Hotheim. The heavier units were to defend a line from west of
the Kirchborchen-Nordborchen road to east of Lichtenau to Scherfede.
By the 30th of March our 83rd Reconnaissance was tied up at
Wunnenberg and Husen, to be passed through by Task Force Richardson
and that of Welborn Task Force Hogan was at Wewer, just southwest
of Paderborn.
Task Force Lovelady, Lieutenant William B. Lovelady of Tennessee,
was engaged at Wrexen, about two miles southwest of Scherfede.
Welborn was fighting all day around Ettein and Husen.
Late in the day Welborn advanced from the northeast side of
Ettein, moved to two miles east of Kirchborchen and then turned
north. The action was about to begin.
Events Leading to the Rose Tragedy
The composition of General Rose's advance command party differed
slightly that prior ones. This day, in the lead jeep (in the
armored force these were generally called peeps, the other appellation
going to the older and larger staff car made by Dodge) were Colonel
Frederic J. Brown, the division artillery commander, accompanied
by his driver and Lieutenant Colonel George G. (Seafood) Garton,
commanding officer of the 391st Armored Field Artillery battalion,
a graduate of West Point and M.I.T. Plump, bald, cigar smoking
Seafood usually got any attached artillery battalion placed under
his command. In taking the lead, or point position, Colonel Brown
assumed what was normally the most exposed position. He was followed
by General Rose, with his aide de camp Major Robert M. Bellinger
and driver, T/5 Glen H. Shaunce. Closely following the general
was Lieutenant Colonel Wesley A. Sweat, Jr. of Florida, his G-3
or operations officer, riding in an armored scout car with seven
men. It was in this vehicle that the principal radio was contained.
Leonard L. Goff, a 19-year old military policeman accompanying
the general on a motorcycle, had his mount hit by enemy fire
and disabled. Sweat, in passing, has his driver slow down, held
out an arm and pulled Goff into the scout car. This was not the
first time Goff had been with the general at the front for he
was, as he says, "19 and single." He recalls that earlier
in the day while the party was stopped the general has asked
if he had any cigarettes and when he replied "a few"
the general gave him several packets from K rations. Shortly
before, when the general's party moved through some of the following
infantry, L. D. McQuaid of F Company, 36th Armored Infantry Regiment,
thought that he was getting pretty far forward. Later McQuaid
met the general's driver, Shaunce, following his escape.
As Welborn's tank force turned northeast of Kirchborchen,
concealed German tanks and self-propelled guns allowed them to
pass, along with one company of infantry, when heavy fire from
both sides of the road came on those following. This included
General Rose's group. Here Rose radioed for support from the
following task force of Colonel L.L. Doan, but it was too late.
From Charles B. MacDonald's The Last Offensive, the
official history, is related: "Four German tanks appeared,
coming up the road from the rear. In the early evening darkness.
Rose and his party tried to escape by racing past the tanks."
What MacDonald does not say is that Colonel Brown and his
artillerymen in the lead vehicle, the one most exposed, escaped
by a hair's breadth. General Rose' s did not, for the tank swerved,
allowing no room to pass, and Rose's peep crashed into the back
of the tank. Sweat's armored scout car stopped just short of
crashing into the general's peep. Rose dismounted on the right
side of the jeep and, apparently, Major Bellinger and Shaunce
stood on either side of him, their hands high.
There was now standing in the turret of the tank before them
the young commander, holding a submachine gun. One quarry had
just escaped him and his adrenaline was pumping hard. Facing
him were armed Americans. Anyone who has stood exposed in the
turret of a tank in combat experienced his feeling of being a
target for anyone capable of reaching him with small arms. It
was apparent that his prisoners were of some consequence, for
how many verdammt Amerikanner wore riding boots and had two stars
on their helmet? Immediately he began shouting instructions to
them, instructions which were not understood.
Bellinger understood the German to say to drop their arms
and did so. Shaunce, it developed later, did not. The general
put his arms toward his waist. Was the general wearing a shoulder
holster or his pistol on his belt? Here is what Colonel Sweat
wrote in 1982, "You and Dugan are both right," this
in a letter to Andrew Barr, "Always he had the shoulder
holster under his combat jacket or shirt and he also wore the
regular belt holster most of the time."
Just prior to this General Rose had spoken to his chief of
staff, John Smith, for quick support by Doan's Task Force, the
nearest, but it was not to be.
At this point, captured, his hand above his head, what thoughts
went through the general's head? What emotions were raised, what
should he do? What did the future hold? For these let us look
into his background and character:
His father, a rabbi, emigrated from Russia to Connecticut
where Maurice was born 26 November 1899. For health reasons,
the father moved the family to Denver, Colorado, but lived to
survive wife and son. From one of his students there it has been
learned that the rabbi was a strict disciplinarian of the old
school, insisted on memory work and chastised the errant with
a ruler. Maurice Rose was raised, reared, in this discipline.
He enlisted in the Colorado National Guard as a private in
1916 and served for three months. The Colorado National Guard
was no black horse, polo playing socialite group, but was best
known for strike breaking. He was appointed a 2nd Lieutenant
in the infantry reserve in August of 1917, promoted to temporary
1st lieutenant in December of the same year, went to officers
training camp at Fort Riley, Kansas, and was among the fortunate
few who saw front line service in WWI, in which he was wounded
in the St. Mihiel offensive of the fall of 1918.
In 1919 he was discharged but by some means re-entered the
service, this time the regular army, July 1, 1920 and was promoted
1st lieutenant the same day.
Wholly without a college or university background, he served
with distinction in peacetime in duty with troops, in an instruction
capacity, he was professor of Military Science and Tactics at
Kansas State, in an administrative role as adjutant at various
posts and attended the requisite army schools, including the
prestigious Command and General Staff School. He also held responsible
staff positions, including that of chief of staff of the 2nd
Armored Division and as a combat commander of that division in
Normandy spurred on Combat Command A to cut off fleeing German
columns, affording the air corps a "turkey shoot."
For details of his service see the attached War Department resume
of July 9, 1945.
He married Dorothea Virginia Barrigner in the Panama Canal
Zone on 12 September 1934, where he had become post adjutant
the latter part of 1932. The record of marriage is in both Spanish
and English. Little is known of her background, could it have
been a government employee, but there remains no doubt as to
the close attachment of the two, the marriage resulting in one
son, Maurice junior, born four years before the death of his
father. It was said that he wrote to her every day, although
how he could have done so in combat remains a question. Everything
that is told of the couple by those who knew them indicate he
was loving husband and fond father.
In his relations with his staff and commanders he was stiff,
formal, fastidious in dress, would brook no foul language. When
at the "gold tooth mess" at Stolberg, this for senior
staff and command officer, he could be harsh and rude. Staff
officers were expected to brief him at breakfast as to happenings
during the night. To visiting officers of rank he could be warm,
friendly, but not over so.
While he was no buddy to the troops, he had rapport with them,
particularly those close to the front, as instanced by the time
in September when facing the dragons teeth before the so called
Siegfried Line and with a facing pillbox of daunting thickness
ahead, he took advice from an infantry squad leader, one of the
prospective attackers, for use of smoke. This was accepted, the
deed done and pill box taken without casualty.
Women found Maurice Rose attractive. With them he could become
less stony faced and gracious, witness the one party of the division
staff in combat, this shortly before the Bulge, when army nurses
from Liege and Red Cross women provided rare female company.
Also, Maurice Rose attended Protestant religious services
during the time he commanded the 3rd Armored Division, and those
alone. There is no question that during this entire time, from
early August of 1944 to the end of March of 1945, he was celibate.
He did require a good table, by which is meant food, china, linen
and surroundings with privacy. He was a moderate drinker.
When slightly wounded following a Luftwaffe attack on Walfriede
Haus outside Stolberg, the command post was on a hill above the
town, half held by the Germans, within rifle shot of the enemy,
he waited until the more seriously wounded were treated before
revealing his wound.
There was no doubt that he was ambitious. professional, and
wanted to be known as a superior American general officer. Throughout
his career he had competed with the best the Army had to offer.
including the graduates of the U.S. Military Academy at West
Point, and he was their equal, if not more. Barring a serious
case of blotting his copy book, Maurice Rose's post-war career
was assured.
This was the situation in those brief moments as he faced
the nervous German in the tank turret.
Colonel John A. Smith, Jr., his chief of staff, years later
and when Smith was of advanced years, quoted Rose as saying,
"Don't worry about me, I'll never be taken prisoner."
But did Rose feel this way at that time, with the end of the
war in sight and a wife and son at home waiting for him? Or did
his ancestry prey on his mind? We will never know.
The Death of a Division Commander
As we now know, the act took place. As General Rose lowered
his hands, for whatever purpose, but with those around him feeling
that the German tank commander was instructing them to drop their
arms and they telling him they did not understand, the tank commander
let loose a volley from his submachine gun, one striking Rose's
helmet in the middle and he fell dead. Some of the survivors,
Bellinger and Shaunce among them, along with Goff, flushed like
a covey of quail and escaped into the nearby brush and woods.
Others, like Colonel Sweat, already under guard and commencing
to approach the tank nearest him, were captured. The entire proceeding,
Sweat says, took place within a circle of 50 feet and within
a few seconds of time.
Back at the forward echelon of the division headquarters,
known as Omaha Forward, located a mile northeast of EtteIn, there
was unease. Colonel John Smith had been requested to have Doan's
task force close up to the general, with Lieutenant Colonel John
K. Boles, Jr.'s unit the closest. With dark upon them, it was
clear that the general would not be back at the command post
that night. Neither would Colonel Sweat, the operations officer,
and orders for the next day were to be got out. Here Major James
A. Alexander, assistant G-3, aided by Majors Gilbert Palmer and
Warren Taylor, took over.
Colonel Smith had the nearest artillery outfit surround the
division command post and they fired all night. The writer, sleeping
on a safari cot of cotton on a steel rod framework, did so in
the gentle undulations of this caused by the guns concussion.
During the drive north towards Paderborn a number of war correspondents
had joined us. Iris Carpenter, the British newspaperwoman writing
for The Boston Daily Glove, indicates that among them
were W.C. Heinz of The New York Sun, Jack Thompson of
The Chicago Tribune, Wilfred (Bunny) Austin of The
Sidney (Australia) Morning Herald, Thomas R. Henry of
The Washington Star, Gordon Fraser of The Blue Network (radio)
and Andy Rooney of The Stars and Stripes. George Hicks
of The Red Network (radio) was usually with Fraser, but he was
not named in this case.
The War Must Go On; Gen. Hickey in Command
This morning, 31 March, General Doyle 0. Hickey arrived from
his combat command by cub plane and took command of the division.
Lieutenant Colonel L.L. (Chubby) Doan took over Combat Command
A and Lieutenant Colonel John K. Boles the task force Doan had.
Colonel Smith had the newsman assembled and announced the
news of General Rose's death and there was a scramble for them
to get back to Press Wireless and announce the event to the world.
However, because of the danger of roaming German elements, they
went in convoy with armored cars and supply trucks going to the
rear for POL, petrol, oil and lubricants, a term from the British
and other supplies.
The general dead or not. the war went on. Here is what Sergeant
Frank Woolner says of the death scene: "Bitterly, men of
Task Force X, now commanded by Lieutenant Colonel John K. Boles,
Jr., a dynamic, boy-faced veteran of tank warfare, cleared the
road block which had cut Welborn's column, and then went on to
take Haxtergrund."
Major Murray Fowler, who wrote the G-3 Supplement to the division
history, Spearhead in the West, had this to say of the
events of the 31 March. "Enemy positions were well dug in
and manned by hundreds of Panzerfaust and bazooka teams. Even
heavy artillery and mortar concentrations could not rout them
out. Task Force Richardson found that flame throwers skillfully
used could be persuasive however. During the day Hogan secured
Wewer, Richardson, Nordborchen, and the 83rd Armored Reconnaissance
Battalion, Dorenhagen and Eggeringhausen. Task Force Lovelady
was relieved at Wrexen by the first elements of the 104th Division
to arrive in the area and moved through Husen and Ettein to relieve
the reconnaissance battalion.
"A part of the (German) tank-infantry force that had
cut Welborn's column withdrew to the north and east during the
night after destroying many American vehicles caught in the cross
fire. They took a few prisoners with them on their tanks and
other vehicles. However, the main strength of the force remained
to fight it out with Boles and Welborn, and resisted stubbornly.
"One force composed of about 200 German infantrymen supported
by five Tiger tanks counterattacked at Hamborn, but were beaten
back. By nightfall, the area was cleared sufficiently to allow
the preparation for a coordinated attack on Paderborn to get
under way."
Sergeant Woolner related that many disillusioned German soldiers
lined up, waiting to be taken prisoner, while "small groups
continued to ambush liaison men and messengers along the winding
roads but frequently the enemy came marching out in company strength,
waving white flags and looking for some one to officially put
them behind barbed wire."
"In clearing the Paderborn area," Woolner said,
"Lieutenant Colonel William R. Orr's 1st Battalion of the
36th Armored Infantry Regiment alone captured 136 cannon, ten
of which were active. Company C, commanded by Lieutenant Robert
J. Cook, was first on the city's airfield. The company was immediately
pinned down by fire from two 88mm and eight 20mm flak weapons
which Jerry had converted to ground use. Division tanks and other
heavy weapons were brought up to take care of these defenses."
Paderborn Fighting: Fierce and Prolonged
From the company history of C Company of the 45th Armored
Medical Battalion, Roland Schoept tells of their part in the
31 March events:
"Combat Command R overcoming resistance at Nordochen.
Two of our ambulances were captured by the Germans as they were
returning to the treatment station. One was captured near Dillenberg
and casualties heard of the terrors of concentration camps. At
Leau, we saw what the German concentration camps was; the unspeakable
brutality which the German people practiced. Here were these
starved men with blank eyes, living corpses really. There were
still the death carts wit several of the dead. The camp originally
held several thousand and there were no sanitary facilities and
no facilities for taking care of the sick. All these years the
stores we had read were not propaganda."
Major Murray Fowler's account of the severity of the defense
before and after the death of General Rose is mirrored in this
account of H. Glen Jenkins in Battle History of A Battery,
391st Armored Field Artillery Battalion, which "Seafood"
Garton commanded.
"As we went along a lot of fanatic SS were putting up
a death struggle against us. The artillery pulled out of the
column to fire on the dug-in enemy. They had good positions,
dug-in, and were hard to dig out. The cub plane spotted a dozen
or so Mark VI tanks in the vicinity of Rhoden, south of Paderborn.
The P-47's were called out and they bombed several of them but
visibility closed down and they had to go back home without finishing
the job.
"The artillery fired on a lot of them, and that knocked
several more out. Resistance kept getting tougher and tougher
until finally the column came to a town, cleaned enough of it
and to knife the column through, and bypassed the rest. In doing
so they had to come out and used a different road from the one
they had originally intended to. It turned out to be a costly
error.
"The column was hurried through the town, and the battery
went into position on a high hill overlooking Rhoden at 19:00
hours. Sergeant Olson's M-7 was sent out to one end of the battery
position as a road block because it was known to everyone that
German tanks were around. Olson paced off the exact distance
between his tank and the turn in the road where any German ranks
would have to come from. He set his sight off for that distance
and was exactly zeroed in. A German tank would have had a hard
time coming around that curve, but it wasn't a job to be relished
because an M-7 (a self propelled 105mm gun) with its thin armor
and 600 mil traverse is no match for any kind of a tank, let
alone a Mark VI.
"In the meantime Lieutenant Plummer, Corporal Mniece,
Private First Class Whitten, and Private First Class MacBride
were up with the leading elements. The task force was going down
a road about five miles south of Paderborn. It was wooded on
one side of the road, while the other side was flat and level
for several hundred yards before it ended in a patch of woods.
Nothing seemed to be wrong when all of a sudden about a dozen
Mark VI tanks came charging out of the woods and over the flat
ground to the road. They cut the column by knocking out a medic
halftrack on one end and an M-4 on the other. They then drove
up and down the road shooting up the helpless halftracks and
tanks. The word helpless is used because a Mark VI is impervious
to the 75's that most of our tanks carry.
"Men were in the ditches on either side of the road,
and the German tanks drove up and down with machine guns and
88's blazing away. Whitten was in a ditch near the peep when
an 88 hit the tank in front of the peep and a fragment hit his
side. A medic patched him up a little but he couldn't be evacuated
just then. Lieutenant Plummer was standing by the peep trying
to get communications with the battalion to bring some fire down
on himself and the Germans. Before he could, however, an 88 HE
shell hit the jeep, demolishing it and setting it on fire, and
fragments ripped into Lieutenant Plummer's leg in about six places.
Mniece and MacBride got a medic and he was patched up, and Mac
went out to look for an ambulance. All this time the Germans
were shooting flares and it was light as day as they tried desperately
to get the men in the ditches, but their machine guns couldn't
be depressed far enough. Mac couldn't find the ambulance and
came back.
"Hungry was working his way down the ditch as best he
could but he had to cross the road. He went down far enough to
get a bank for cover and crawled across the road and tried to
edge his way to the woods. Flaming vehicles lit the night and
the Germans were out of their tanks yelling like a bunch of drunken
Indians. General Rose was up at the front of the column trying
to find a solution so he could get the force through, when a
German tank popped up only yards away. The Tank commander opened
the hatch and covered the general with a burp gun. The general
held his hands above his head and told them he was willing to
surrender. As he was explaining this he reached down to throw
his pistol away in evidence of good faith. The German tank commander
started firing and emptied the clip of his burp gun into the
general's face. He was killed instantly, of course, by the SS
tanker. General Rose was one of the Army's best, and in our opinion
the best armored force commander of them all. Besides that he
was a soldier.
"One had only to see him to know that his appearance
commanded immediate respect, and he had that respect. His death
was deeply felt by every member of this division.
"It was getting later all the time and the situation
wasn't improving any so Lieutenant Plummer knew they should be
trying to get out, if they were going to. So even though he was
under the influence of morphine he kept his senses enough to
lead Mniece and Private First Class Horton (from headquarters
battery) in short crawls down the ditch for several hundred yards
before they could turn off and crawl for the woods. Rests were
frequent because of Lieutenant Plummer's wound but they made
the woods and went in far enough that they couldn't be seen.
They spent a cold and shivering night there with no bedding and
no jackets. They could see the 12 burning halftracks and the
eight tanks that had been knocked out, and could see and hear
the Germans celebrating like crazy men.
"Hungry had reached another patch of woods and decided
to try to work his way through them and reach the battalion.
He could hear the guns firing and knew them to be ours. He was
a little afraid that maybe the outposts would not recognize him
as an American and would shoot first and ask questions later,
in view of the situation. He decided to risk it, though, and
started working his way through the woods toward the battalion.
He made it around midnight and was given treatment by Captain
Cobb and taken in to Lieutenant Colonel Lawton F. Garner (Div
Arty executive officer) to tell him of the situation.
"Mac had gotten in with some of the infantry and they
took to the woods, alternately sleeping and standing guard, and
advancing towards a town they knew was in our hands. They spent
most of their time on guard, however, because they only had one
machine gun plus their individual weapons. Mac stayed with this
outfit for several days before they were finally relieved, and
when he got back he plainly showed the strain he had been under.
"Lt. Plummer, Mniece, and T/5 Horton were in the woods,
and after a sleepless night they decided to try to get out. Mniece
and Horton made a litter from poles and a beat up overcoat they
found and rolled the Chief into it. They carried him several
hundred yards in short hauls until they got to the edge of the
woods.
"By now our forces had sent doughboys up to clean things
out and Mniece was very happy when he saw the first one. An ambulance
was sent for and Lieutenant Plummer was evacuated. He was a swell
guy and everyone thought he was strictly all right."
Jenkins goes on to relate that with the enemy tanks withdrawal
the task force moved on and the 391st A battery to a position
on the side of a hill a half mile from where the attack had taken
place the night before, arriving at 16:00 hours on the 31st,
at which time they started firing on enemy tanks and mortar nests
near Paderborn. This was not the first close encounter with the
enemy by the 391st. In Normandy, firing point blank at German
infantry, they had cut the fuses so close that the bugaboo of
all artillerymen, a muzzle blast, was chanced.
3rd Armored Eastward Drive Continues
In Paderborn the Germans had lost their communications center
linking them with the Ruhr. A brief contretemps occurred when
General Omar Bradley, of 12th Army Group, anxious about the command,
sent Major General Ernest N. Harmon (old Gravel Voice), former
commanding general of the 2nd Armored and under whom Maurice
Rose served as chief of staff, to take over the division. This
was a demotion in that Harmon now commanded XXII Corps. But thanks
to the intervention of our VII Corps commander, Major General
J. Lawton Collins, with Harmon agreeing, Doyle 0. Hickey assumed
command of the division.
Meanwhile, back at the 3rd Armored, the war continued. On
5 April the division continued its advance to the east, with
concern about the defense of the Weser River, but this was soon
overcome. VII Corps had concern about regrouped German forces
emerging from the passes in the Harz mountains, but this too
proved needless, or at least exaggerated.
Nordhausen Slave Labor Camp & Underground Factory
The 3rd Armored is credited with being the only armored division
to uncover a slave labor camp and it is, unfortunately, true.
Here is Murray Fowler's account:
"Nordhausen was entered on 11 April by Combat Command
R. The enemy offered little opposition in the town itself. Perhaps
they feared being connected in some way with the notorious Nordhausen
concentration camp near the city. This camp was uncovered in
all its depravity by the 3rd Armored Division and steps were
taken to insure that photographic and other evidence was collected
before any changes were made. Even the great piles of starved
dead were left as found.
"North of Nordhausen at a place called 'Dora' the 3rd
Armored uncovered one of the German's most extensive and elaborate
underground factories. This factory, devoted to the construction
of V-1 and V-2 weapons and Junker's airplane motors as well as
extensive experimentation with the super secret V-3 anti-aircraft
weapon, was completely underground. Some of the tunnels were
at a depth of 600 feet and extended two miles. Here and at the
V-2 assembly plant at Klein Bordungen, the most able-bodied of
the inmates of Nordhausen concentration camp were forced to work
at manufacturing and assembling parts. Both of these plants were
taken and secured by the 3rd Armored until relieved."
Relief was by elements of Major General Terence de la Mesa
Alien's following 104th Infantry Division. Throughout the period
since crossing the Rhine the 3rd Armored had the active support
of air corps P-47 fighter planes and they and the artillery spotter
cub airplanes eased the losses and greatly aided our advance.
Frank Woolner, in his account, gives more detail on the horrors
of Nordhausen:
"Everywhere among the dead were the living -- emaciated,
ragged shapes whose fever bright eyes waited passively for the
release of death. Over all the area clung the terrible odor of
decomposition and, like a dirge of forlorn hope, the combined
cries of these unfortunates rose and fell in weak undulations.
It was a fabric of moans and whimpers, of delirium and outright
madness. Here and there a single shape tottered about, walking
slowly, like a man dreaming.
"There was no hope for many of the prisoners in this
place. Major Martin L. Sherman, a medical officer, estimated
that although the army's medical facilities would be immediately
put to use there was little chance of more than half the patients
surviving.
"They were so far gone in the depths of starvation that
death was a matter of hours. A number of those who had not starved
had been shot by SS troopers when they attempted to run for cover
during the air bombardment. They were, in a way, lucky.
"The highly efficient German herrenvolk who caused the
situation at Nordhausen and Dora, which was a place several kilometers
to the north, were acting out a clearly defined program. These
prisoners were political enemies of the 3rd Reich, Germans as
well as other European nationals. They were men like Peter Hahn,
a German communist, who had been a constant inmate of his country's
concentration camps for eight years; like Pole Leitner, a Hungarian
electrician, who was dying from the ravages of tuberculosis.
There were 14 year old boys and aged men, their were members
of the French Intelligence, Belgians, Poles, Russians- a very
babel of tongues and nations, all dying together in the filth
and dirt of their own dysentery.
"Guarded by SS troops who delighted in beating the prisoners,
these men had slept in three-decker wooden bunks, three men in
each tier. Now every other man was a sunken corpse and, often
as not, his neighbor in the same bed still lived and had the
strength to move his eyes, slowly and wonderingly.
"This was according to plan. The prisoners had worked,
had dragged themselves to labor on V-1 and V-2 assembly lines
although they were starving on a diet of four ounces of black
bread and a small amount of thin soup each day. They worked because
the SS had a cure for slackers or alleged saboteurs. At Dora
they hanged 32 men one day and forced the entire garrison to
watch. The prisoners then hauled their comrades to German cremation
ovens.
"The ovens were a very important fixture at Dora. The
bodies came in by truckloads, stripped of all clothing, and were
dumped on the ground. When crematoriums were full a pyre was
constructed outside; first a tier of bodies, then a layer of
dry wood, more bodies and kerosene. They burned well enough for
the SS and it didn't matter to them if a few bones were left.
In fact, the SS wasn't at all partial; when one of their own
men died, he too was shoveled into the oven.
"The camp at Dora was elaborate. While Nordhausen was
merely a barracks area from which the men were marched to work
each morning at 4 a.m. Dora was a factory in itself. There were
two parallel tunnels driven into the side of a hill there for
a distance of almost two miles. Numbers of crossing tunnels and
two separate levels were packed solidly with precision machinery.
Here, the slave labor turned out quantities of V-l and V-2 weapons,
many of which were intact when Combat Command B elements arrived
to halt production. Robot bombs were an old story to Spearhead
troops, but the more unfamiliar V-2 was of interest. They found
the weapon to be shaped like a huge cigar with fins, 50 feet
long. It had a huge, mushroom shaped engine and an electrician's
nightmare of wiring. V-3, according to prisoners, was also undergoing
experiments at Dora, but few political prisoners were assigned
to its development. Those who were put on V-3 manufacture, according
to eye-witnesses accounts, were segregated and finally murdered
to preserve the secret of that which they had seen.
"The arrival of American troops was miraculous to the
half-crazed and starved slave labors. At Dora, hysterically happy
men attempted to lift Lieutenant Herbert Gontard to their shoulders.
Although the lieutenant was a slim young man, the weakened laborers
couldn't lift him.
"Nordhausen and Dora were efficient in a characteristic
Nazi way, but to the shocked eyes of American fighting men, the
camps were the most complete condemnation of Hitlerism yet exposed."
General Collins had the civilians from the town brought out
to see their neighbors. The civilians professed ignorance of
what had been happening. Some became ill at the sight.
Onward to Dessau on the Elbe River
After leaving the division headquarters command post at Nordberchen
on 5 April following command posts were Brakel, the 6th; Adelebsen
the 9th; Wernigerode the 10th; Sangerhausen the 12th; Freist
the 13th and, our last command post in combat, Lingerau the 14th.
Memories of two of these come to mind, one east of the Harz mountains
when we put up overnight on a flat plain at the country home
(and estate, really) of the Nazi foreign minister, von Ribbentrop.
The house had a tile roof and magnificent porcelain stoves, well
decorated and efficient distributors of heat. During the night
the artillery fired incessantly (Colonel Frederic Brown, our
artillery commander, later said we fired more shells than any
other division in Europe) and the concussion caused the tiles
to come loose and fall to the ground. All night there was, in
addition to and subsequent to each artillery firing, the sound
of tiles sliding down the roof, to land on the broken ones on
the ground. One wonders what happened to the house at the next
rain. This was in an agricultural area and, in an agricultural
areas, one expects farm smells. In this the area excelled. Surplus
beet crops had been covered with din, to be used for feedstock
for animals, and fermented. The result was a stench which would
make a full latrine smell like Channel No. 5. Could have this
been at Freist?
Another incident toward the closing days of the war come to
mind. The commanding post, with General Hickey in charge, had
been set up in a small town on the main road leading through
the town, with elements of the division passing by. There arrived
a Russian officer, a war correspondent but wearing full field
dress uniform, high collar tunic, black polished boots, billed
cap, accompanied by a U.S. soldier of unknown rank and political
convictions wearing an enamel spearhead device, yellow on brown,
as interpreter. At this point General Hickey desired an interpreter
of his own choosing and Lt. Lorand Andahazy of the reconnaissance
unit of the 33rd Armored Regiment was sent for. Andahazy, a Hungarian,
spoke a Slavic language and would suffice. General Hickey was
polite, showed the Russian the situation map, including the objective
for the day. At that time our 23rd Armored Engineer Battalion
was crossing in front of the command post. It had a considerable
amount of equipment, including a bridging column, and took up
a lot of road space.
"Is this one division," the Russian said. "No,"
was the supply, this was but one battalion. The Russian shook
his head. Although a writer for Tass, he had been in active
combat on the front at either Stalingrad or Leningrad and was
undoubtedly a party member and intelligence officer, too. He
got an eyeful.
As we crossed the flat north German plain, grand tank country,
Hitler was encouraging German youth to form wolf packs and engage
the Verdamdt Americanisher. A few did, to their sorrow, some
survived.
Along the way Eisleben was declared an open city but on the
outskirts, at Polleben, a British Prisoner of War camp was overrun
and some 400 Englishmen liberated. Some had been prisoners since
Dunkirk, Crete and North Africa. They, too, were impressed with
our equipment.
By the time the Salle River was met on 13 April and crossed
on bridges built that night by Task Forces Hogan and Lovelady
there had been horror, as at Nordhausen, suspense as to Panzer
forces erupting from the Harz Mountain passes, but engagements
had been light. This was about to change, from which some lessons
were relearned. One was that the German soldier was a formidable
fighting man. Another was the importance of armor having infantry
back up and for clean-up purposes. Another was the importance
of air support having close enough bases so that planeloads would
have more bombs and ammunition than gasoline.
Orders were to seize river crossings on the Elbe near Dessau
and Wittenberg. Just down river from Dessau the Elbe joined the
more westerly Mulde River. Vast areas to the rear and flanks
remained with strong but scattered enemy forces.
Dessau, by road is about 66 miles from Potsdam, and the outer
defenses of Berlin were being approached.
Defending our objective were the Potsdam, Schamhorst and Von
Hutten divisions, with personnel drawn from the composite officers
candidate school, including the Hitler Jugend. Recovering wounded
also "fleshed out" these divisions, each estimated
having a strength of from 4,000 to 6,000. Stray troops were included
in the personnel.
Position of these divisions (see map) were the Potsdam Division
around Aken, the Schamhorst from there along the Elbe and Mulde
to the autobahn south of Dessau and the Von Hutten on the west
bank of the Mulde from there to Raghun and southwest to Rodigkau.
From Spearhead in the West we learn that Task Force
Hogan, on crossing the Salle River on the 14th, forced its way
into the southern part of Kothen, defended by about two determined
battalions.
Charles B. MacDonald, in The Last Offensive, relates,
and this supports the need of close infantry support, "After
Kothen was cleared in a fight that lasted nearly 24 hours, so
many Germans infiltrated back into the city that another 12 hours
of fighting ensued before Kothen was finally secure." He
also mentions that a large forest south of Dessau provided a
base for raiding parties and counterattacks.
This was an unsettled time. Besides enemy action, as when
a wire crew was ambushed near Quellendorf, two men from Combat
Command A were killed, while nearby the division ordnance officer
was captured. Civilians, slave laborers, displaced persons and
allied prisoners of war recently liberated swarmed the countryside,
some pillaging. Lieutenant Herbert Gontard and T/Sergeant Robert
Cresswell tried to quell a near riot of about 1,000 DP's seeking
food and loot and succeeded in having two German bakeries opened.
German troops fleeing from the east and caught between the Elbe
and the Mulde would send a group with an officer to parley, requesting
aid in fighting the Russians. When refused, they would leave
to fight again. From Spearhead in the West there follows
a fuller account.
Next Chapter: War's End and Occupation
|