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BOOKLET FOREWORD
This booklet, along with its preceding volume, CALL ME SPEARHEAD,
is in no sense a complete history of the 3rd Armored Division.
Rather, it is a brief narrative touching the high points of this
organization's campaigning in Europe. For that reason, few individual
soldiers are mentioned. For the purposes of identification, combat
command and task force leaders names are used throughout.
Neither is there sufficient room in this booklet to pay proper
homage to the integral units and attached battalions which have,
by their actions, made the 3rd Armored "Spearhead"
Division a famous American fighting force.
This copy of SPEARHEADING is printed and distributed for the
men of the command, the plain, everyday GI-Joe's who met Jerry
face to face, challenged him, and then beat him into complete
defeat! It's written for the men who won the war in the west,
and it is designed to tell partially the immense and wonderful
story of how the job was done.
CHAPTER I
- Pause on the Western Front -
When the 3rd Armored "Spearhead" Division ground
to a halt in the Stolberg-Mausbach area in mid-September of 1944,
it was in a last burst of effort. The big steel machine was running
on nerve and mechanical miracles. Vehicles needed maintenance.
Men were haggard with fatigue. But the 3rd went on through the
Siegfried line and hit Stolberg, took half of it - and paused.
That pause lasted for nearly four months of heavy attrition and
was climaxed by the sudden breakthrough on von Rundstedt's Christmas
offensive in Belgium.
In September the world, and evidently Germany too, gasped
as General Courtney Hodges' First United States Army, paced by
the free wheeling "Spearhead" smashed completely through
the Westwall. Later, when the division blasted its way into Cologne,
it was learned that the city fathers had prepared to surrender
the town in September, and that the Nazi officials had all fled
across the river at that time.
However true this statement may be, the fact remains that
the 3rd Armored Division had reached its utter limit in the great
summer offensive drive. It was in sore need of maintenance, rest,
and supply. Of a near total 400 tanks authorized by tables of
organization, only about 100 were in satisfactory operating condition.
This was not at all surprising since the armor had traveled nearly
700 miles from Normandy without proper care or maintenance.
So, although division morale was high, the 3rd was forced
to halt and lick the wounds of battle. One factor in this decision
was the meeting with the 12th German Infantry Division, a unit
which had been re-equipped in West Prussia and rushed to the
battle zone in Stolberg. Actually, officers and men of the "Spearhead"
expected this halt to be of short duration. That hope was unfounded.
Long and bitter fighting lay ahead before the 3rd was destined
to read Germany's storied Rhine.
- The Divided City -
Stolberg was a divided city, half in German hands, and half
occupied by American troops. While the stalemate continued, VII
Corps prepared for its assault on Aachen. The 3rd Armored Division
held a narrow sector, Stolberg to Maussbach, excepting for the
period from October 25 to November 10, when the 47th Regimental
Combat Team of the 9th Division, and the 294th Engineer Combat
Battalion were attached, during which time the zone extended
through Hurtgen Forest to the V Corps boundary.
During this build-up period, troops holding the line were
rotated so that replacements could be trained. German buildings
were used as billets, for late fall brought miserable weather
conditions. The division CP was established in the Prym house
at Stolberg, with Combat Command Hickey at Breinig, Combat Command
Boudinot between Breinig and Kornelimunster, and rear echelon
at Raaren. CC Howze was near the division CP.
Apart from nocturnal air raids and artillery fire, the front
was quiet. Military Government, formerly Civil Affairs, had a
busy period, though. Being the first to operate in Germany, there
were no precedents upon which to base decisions. Probably the
actions of the 3rd Armored Division military government forces
in the Stolberg-Breinig-Kornelimunster area set the pattern for
future dealings with German civilians in the soon to be occupied
Reich. It was a good example. German civilians were tired of
war and, in the main, peaceful and cooperative, albeit a little
astonished at the non-fraternization policy.
The fall of Aachen was of general interest in October, and
the 3rd played a small part in this operation. Task Force Hogan
was committed in the western reaches of the city, attached to
the 1st Infantry Division. Hogan seized strategic Louisberg Hill
on October 19, working with the 26th Infantry. His men took over
700 prisoners.
- Yard By Yard -
By November 15, the "Spearhead" was ready to attack
on Corps order. Intelligence had learned, through prisoners of
war, that the 47th German Infantry Division was preparing to
relieve the wearied and much shelled 12th. It was an opportune
time for American action.
On November 16, Combat Command Boudinot jumped off toward
the Hamich-Hastenrath ridge. Supporting the attack, in clear
weather, Eighth Air Force bombers hit the Eschweiler-Lagerwehe
area as the drive was launched. Combat Command Hickey supported
the 104th Infantry Division on the left.
Within 24 minutes of his H-Hour, Colonel Lovelady's forces
were on their objective in Kottenich. Task Force Mills was held
up by a cleverly concealed mine field, but was on its objective
in Scherpenseel and, excepting for the Hastenrath area, had completely
mopped up his sector by noon of the 18th. On that day, Lt. Colonel
Mills was killed and Colonel John Wellborn took command of the
force. By November 21st, the division was "pinched out"
by the 104th and 1st Infantry Divisions. It had been a slow,
bloody, but extensive fight.
During the period from November 24 to 26, elements of Combat
Command Hickey attacked the enemy from positions east of Eschweiler
to secure high ground between Langerwehe and Frenz. Mud and antitank
fire slowed the armor, but Task Force Richardson, with the 2nd
Battalion of the 47th Infantry attached, plus air support, struggled
to its objective.
Mines were a constant threat in the mud and near-static fighting
of this front. One engineer platoon under Lt. Edmund J. Socha,
cleared more than 1,000 of the explosives in three days without
sustaining casualties among his own men even though they were
under constant mortar and artillery fire.
In the last stages of the push to the Roer, a little stream
which was vexing because its levels could be controlled so efficiently,
Combat Command Howze jumped off on December 10, with Task Force
Kane going to Echtz, and Task Force Hogan taking Geich and Obergeich.
The two task forces, with the 1st Battalion of the 60th Infantry,
then cleared Hoven on the banks of the Roer, slugging out a decision
over tanks, AT guns, and artillery opposition.
During the period of slow inching forward, VII Corps had set
up a rest camp in Verviers which was visited by many of the division
personnel. Although the entire "Spearhead" area was
under constant enemy artillery fire, periodic air raids, and
seemed to be a V-1 robot alley, the men attended to laundry,
repaired their vehicles and constructed more comfortable log-covered
dugouts. Division engineers repaired and kept operating the Stolberg
water system. The local citizenry became accustomed to the sight
of olive drab uniforms, and the days of blitzkrieg warfare seemed
to have come to a complete halt. The scenery began to be reminiscent
of the western front of 1918!
The calm was deceptive. Suddenly, one evening, electrifying
news came clamoring over the lines of communication. One week
before Christmas, 1944, total war enveloped the "Spearhead"
as never before in its flamboyant career!
CHAPTER II
- The "Bulge" -
The front suddenly erupted in an action that shocked the Allied
world. German General Field Marshall von Rundstedt, generally
accepted as the Reich's most able military leader, had gambled
most of his remaining western reserves in a bold stroke to smash
completely through allied lines of communication and supply feeding
the Anglo-American armies. The great counter-offensive swept
into the Ardennes on December 16, broke through a thin American
line and began to swiftly exploit initial gains. That Jerry was
capable of such a counter-offensive was quite generally conceded.
Intelligence knew that the Sixth SS and Fifth Panzer Armies had
been out of the line. The question remaining was this: how much
power can the enemy muster, and where will the blow fall? Now,
the 3rd Armored Division, and other units of the First and Third
Armies, were to have the answers delivered in hot steel and were
to experience the full fury of a Nazi force which held, for a
horribly swaying moment in history, the initiative of battle.
- Hold That Tiger -
The "Spearhead" Division picked up its tracks in
a hurry, and roared out of the Stolberg salient. First to go
to the threatened area was Combat Command Hickey, which was detached
to the V Corps, on December 18, to defend the Eupen area. There,
the command rounded up parachutists and remained in Corps reserve
until attached to division on December 21 in the Grandmenil area.
To Combat Command Boudinot went a grim task. Attached initially
to V Corps for the defense of Verviers, it was immediately switched
to the XVIII Airborne Corps upon arriving at its assembly area
and, working with the 30th Infantry Division, helped create and
eliminate the famed "La Gleize Pocket" which resulted
in so much destruction to the 1st SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler
Panzer Division, one of Germany's elite of the elite.
On December 20, Task Force Lovelady, moving south from Pont
de Lorrain, encountered and destroyed an enemy column, set up
a road block, met opposition at a junction near Trois Ponts,
established another road block, and a third at Grand Coo. At
this point, Lovelady was ordered to move east from Petit Coo
to Parfondry, an operation bent on the retaking of Stavelot.
At Parfondry, Task Force Lovelady found evidence of German
atrocities in the bodies of murdered Belgians, women, children,
and the aged. And, in this town, the enemy cut off the route
of Lovelady's entrance plus his route to the road block near
Trois Ponts, where Major George Stallings was in command. It
was not until the 24th that the junction of these two forces
was made.
Meanwhile, Task Force McGeorge had attacked south from LaReid
on December 20, using two columns, with Battle Group Jordan given
the mission of taking Stoumont and joining McGeorge at LaGleize
on the 24th, and entered after destroying 26 tanks, four self
propelled guns, and taking 150 prisoners.
On the 25th, Christmas day, Combat Command Boudinot assembled
near Spa, and reverted to division control.
Meanwhile, after Combat Command Hickey and Combat Command
Boudinot had been detached, the remainder of the division began
a "hell for leather" march to the Hotton-Manhay area
on December 19, with only combat Command Howze and the 83rd Armored
Reconnaissance Battalion left under division control.
By noon of the 20th, these units had arrived, and where given
the mission of securing the road from Manhay to Houffalize. Task
Force Kane was given the highway as a route of advance. Task
Force Orr: Erezee, Amonines, Dochamps, and Samree, and Task Force
Hogan a secondary road parallel and east of the Ourthe River.
This small force, actually one third of the division, was attempting
to cover an arc of 15 miles cut by more than 30 roads and trails!
Heavy fighting broke out around Samree and Dochamps. The road
junction south of Manhay on the Houffalize road was also a hot
corner. Task Force Hogan, ordered to seize the crossings of the
Ourthe between Gouvy and Houffalize, met heavy defenses and was
forced to pull back to Beffe. Short of gasoline, Hogan holed
up in Marcouray where he organized a strong perimeter of defense
based on high ground. He was shortly surrounded and faced with
the threat of complete annihilation.
Combat Command Hickey was re-attached to the division on December
21, and began moving into the Grandmenil area. The 83rd Armored
Field Artillery Battalion had been attached the previous day.
On December 22, the 1st Battalion of the 517th Parachute Infantry
Regiment and the 643rd Tank Destroyer Battalion were attached.
Task Force Doan was ordered to cut the Marche-Bastogne road,
and Combat Command Howze, which had established a road block
in the Soy area, was reinforced. On this day, Task Force Kane,
holding a position 1,000 yards north of Dochamps, and Task Force
Orr, reinforced, ground forward to take Amonines.
On December 23, the Division was further strengthened by the
290th Regimental Combat Team of the 75th Infantry Division, the
509th Parachute Infantry Battalion, and the 188th Field Artillery
Battalion. Task Force Doan was attached to the 84th Infantry
Division, and the 3rd reverted to VII Corps after being with
the XVIII Airborne Corps for several days.
Task Force Richardson took over Kane's road block, which had
been cut by the Germans. Hogan remained surrounded in Marcouray.
With the attachment of the 289th Regimental Combat Team of
the 75th Division, the 730th Field Artillery Battalion, two companies
of the 87th Chemical Battalion (4.2 mortars) and the return of
Combat Command Boudinot on the following day, General Rose had
under his command a force approaching corps strength. In addition
to the organic elements of the division there were two complete
regimental combat teams, two battalions of parachutists, two
companies of 4.2 mortars, four battalions of artillery and two
TD battalions.
- The Battered Spearhead Holds -
On December 24, knowing that the German was to continue his
attack, it was ordered to stabilize the line. To straighten the
defensive position, Combat Command Howze was ordered to advance.
It was also necessary to withdraw Richardson's road block to
narrow the Manhay-Grandmenil sector. As Combat Command "B"
of the 7th Armored Division was going through Manhay, eight enemy
tanks and some infantry managed to get behind Richardson's road
block and into the town. Richardson withdrew, having only light
tanks, and ordered Major Brewster at the road block, to fall
back to Malempre. Caught on the move by fire from both sides,
Brewster quickly lost two of his four tanks. He destroyed the
remaining vehicles and came out on foot.
Task Force Hogan, still surrounded hopelessly, was running
out of ammunition and medical supplies as well as gasoline. Several
attempts at supply by air had failed, the parachuted material
falling into enemy hands. The 54th Armored Field Artillery Battalion
had attempted to fire shells packed with medical supplies in
on the beleaguered forces, but were unable to do so.
After refusing an ultimatum to surrender, Hogan ordered all
vehicles destroyed. He and his men, the famed "400",
infiltrated through enemy lines on Christmas night, to reach
American positions after a 14 hour march through German territory.
On December 26, Kane's force was withdrawn. The line was secure.
Combat Command Boudinot relieved Combat Command Howze in the
Soy area on December 27, and defenses were further improved.
In front of the "Spearhead" Division at this time were
miles of wire and hundreds of anti-tank mines. Our armor was
dug-in, ready to defend.
- Rundstedt Loses The Gamble -
There was a short breathing space in which to take stock of
the situation. Certainly von Rundstedt's great gamble had failed,
but by a margin too close for comfort. Committed here against
the 3rd Armored Division had been: the 2nd SS Das Reich Panzer
Division, in the Manhay-Grandmenil sector and, on the night of
December 27, the 12th SS Hitler Jugend Panzer Division in the
Samree-Dochamps area. The Manhay north-south road was the boundary
between the Sixth SS Panzer Army on the east, and the Fifth Panzer
Army on the west. Their avowed intentions were a powerful drive
to Liege and then a sweep to Antwerp coordinated with a curving
thrust to take Aachen. Because divisions like the 3rd Armored
fought to the last cartridge and the last drop of gasoline, Jerry
ground to a halt in flame and death and destruction.
There were the usual heroic small actions. One of these, an
event which played no small part in halting von Rundstedt's drive,
was the engagement at Hotton, beginning on December 21. Here,
the division had left a small force of headquarters and 143rd
Armored Signal Company personnel, a few MP's of Major Charles
Kapes' detachment, some infantry of the 36th Armored Infantry
Regiment, and a few men of the 23rd Armored Engineer Battalion.
The force was later joined by a platoon each of tanks from
G Company of the 32nd Armored Regiment, C Company of the 33rd
Armored Regiment, and B Company of the 36th Armored Infantry
Regiment, all elements of Combat Command Howze.
However, no such strength was represented when the enemy began
his all-out attack on December 21, The piecemeal task force held,
and on the 22nd, was reinforced by parachutists of the 517th
Parachute Infantry.
Still outgunned and outnumbered, the defensive line held and
beat off several German attacks which penetrated into the outskirts
of the town. When the besieged group was relieved on Christmas
day it had held its position doggedly in the face of superior
forces, heavy shelling, mortar and small arms fire.
On December 28, the enemy bolstered his waning drive with
an attack by the 12th SS Hitler Jugend Panzer Division. This
drive penetrated to the Briscol-Sadzot area, where it was sealed
off and repelled. An attack above Magoster, on the same day,
was broken up by artillery. After less than two weeks of heavy
fighting, the offensive was smashed. Now Jerry dug in and knew
that the pendulum must swing back.
By the end of December, the 3rd Armored Division was out of
the line and preparing for a new offensive.
- The Bitter Battles -
Hilly terrain, the worst weather a Belgian winter had to offer
- and the best of remaining German troops faced the division
when it jumped off on January 3 from a line of departure, roughly
Manhay-Snamont.
With Combat Command Hickey on the left, Combat Command Boudinot
on the right, and the 83rd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion echeloned
to the rear, the "Spearhead" advanced 11 hard-won kilometers
in six days, reducing village after village.
Colonel Hogan's force, re-equipped, operated down the Manhay
road, under Combat Command Howze.
Towns with the names of Malempre, Floret, Jevigne, Baneux,
Lansival, Xhout-si-Ploux, LaVaux, and Lierneaux, fell in swift
succession.
Major George Stallings, subbing for Colonel Lovelady, took
Fraiture on January 6, surprising a German battalion in an assembly
area and taking 250 prisoners. Hogan's force cut the crossroads
formed by the junction of the Manhay-Houffalize and LaRoche-Salmchateau
roads, a crossing which now bears his name in countless yellowing
newspaper files.
In bitter, crisping cold, the combat commands drove forward.
There seemed to be a paralyzing icy mist over the entire battle
front, a cloud of fine, driving snow that left every tree silvered
and weighted with the clinging stuff. All of the roads were glazed
to slippery ribbons, and tank tracks skidded alarmingly on the
shoulders. Snowdrifts covered extensive fields of anti-tank mines,
and hard ground made foxhole construction a nightmare when shells
were falling. Men came out of the line with frozen feet, were
treated at aid stations, and trudged back up to fight again.
The Ardennes looked like a Christmas card, but appearances were
again deceptive: it was agony all the way.
Task Force Doan, back with the division, took Sart, Grand
Sart, and Provedreux on January 7, while Richardson seized Verleumont
and Joubieval and Welborn took Regne, Hebronval and Ottre.
Lierneaux was the site of a famed Belgian institution for
the mentally ill. German forces carefully booby-trapped the place,
even though a number of the afflicted inmates were at large.
Here, in an abandoned building, division headquarters was established
for several days. Nearby the 45th Armored Medical Battalion established
a rest center which catered to lightly wounded and near frozen
men.
During the period of time from January 10 to 20, the "Spearhead"
advanced another fiercely contested 10 kilometers.
In the first stages of this drive, the 12th Volksgrenadier
Division, recalled from Stolberg campaigning, was encountered
and thoroughly chewed up. As this unit faded, the 326th Volksgrenadier
Division was put into the line and the 9th Panzer Division was
reported to be on the front. Later, the 15th Panzer Grenadier
Division came from the south to help hold 3rd Armored Division
advances.
On January 13, Colonel Yeoman's 83rd Armored Reconnaissance
Battalion accomplished a spectacular drive in this so-far battle
of attrition. His force cut deep into enemy positions and established
road block astride the Houffalize-St. Vith road, a key highway.
Meanwhile, Task Forces Kane and Hogan battled into Mont le Ban.
The same day, Lovelady took Lomre in a coordinated tank attack.
The following day, Task Force Welborn's men entered Baclain.
The towns of Sterpigny and Cherain are engraved on the memories
of the 3rd Armored Division tankers. Here, part of Task Force
Welborn was cut off on the 15th, and its light tanks destroyed
by a marauding Panther. A single Sherman bounced three rounds
off the frontal armor of the Nazi, only to be destroyed by this
potent enemy. Richardson's forces strengthened the group on the
following day, and later pushed eastward.
Cherain was initially attacked by Task Force Lovelady, which
lost heavily in tanks to the German defenders and their carefully
emplaced anti-tank guns. The town finally fell to Hogan's infantry
- I Co. of the 36th.
As the "Spearhead" fought south of Cherain on January
16, German vehicles, attempting to pull out of the rapidly closing
bulge pocket, streamed across the 3rd Armored Division's direct
front. Slipping and sliding on the icy pavements, these columns
were taken under fire by artillery of the 67th Armored Field,
the 83rd Armored Field, and the 183rd Field Artillery Battalion.
Thirteen of a total 25 enemy tanks observed were destroyed by
the concentrations of shellfire. It was a highly satisfactory
sight to the tired and half-frozen Yanks on this line of battle.
During this time the division had worked closely with the
83rd Infantry Division.
Gradually, the division units were withdrawn. Finally, the
entire "Spearhead" was out of contact and billeted
in the Ouffet-Durbuy area for rest and refitting.
A final chalk-up of enemy losses for the "bulge"
meetings with 3rd Armored Division elements totaled: 98 tanks,
20 self propelled guns, 76 motor transports, eight artillery
pieces, 23 AA and AT guns, 1,705 estimated Nazi's killed, 545
estimated wounded, and 2,705 hard-won prisoners or war.
During the campaign, known facetiously as "the bitter
battle for billets in the Belgian bulge", the Germans had
attempted to infiltrate sabotage teams, clad in American uniforms,
through our lines. There were few U.S. soldiers who had not only
been asked for the password, but forced to name the capitol of
their state, give Sinatra's first name, or other similar, spontaneous
proof of nationality.
The "Bulge" campaign was finished. It had been one
of the hardest - if not the hardest - fights in which the division
had ever engaged. The "Spearhead" emerged victorious,
but badly mauled.
CHAPTER III
- Across the Roer -
Almost it seemed that a cloud of misery had been dissipated
as the "Spearhead" rolled out of the Ardennes conflict.
The snow disappeared under warm spring sun and the grass was
green again. There was a short period of rest and refitting.
New tanks, better guns and the latest equipment were issued.
One day the inevitable order came down: the 3rd was moving up.
It was Germany again.
The "Spearhead" rumbled out of Belgium, back to
familiar terrain, the pillbox dotted hills of Stolberg and Breinig,
into the shattered towns of bitter memory. At full strength,
rested and ready, the 3rd Armored Division tensed for the H-Hour
of new combat. This time it was the Rhine.
In the misty half-light of dawn on February 26, the First
Army's big steel cutting edge jumped off. In multiple columns,
Combat Command Hickey on the right, and Combat Command Boudinot
on the left, the "Spearhead" Division crossed the Roer
behind Major General Terry Allen's famed "Timberwolves",
- shook loose, and began to drive!
Here was no Ardennes of ice and bitter snow, of impossible
conditions and a bow to enemy initiative. This was it the
old, pounding, smashing, pursuit: the fortified towns, each with
its main street barricaded, vehicles overturned and buildings
smoldering in ruin. Before the early sunset on February 26, Task
Force Doan had captured Blatzheim and penetrated Bergenhausen
despite heavy antitank fire. Task Force Kane, and the 83rd Armored
Reconnaissance Battalion, commanded by leather-lunged Lt. Colonel
Prentice E. Yeomans, had cleared Manheim. Combat Command Boudinot's
Task Force Welborn reached the edge of Elsdorf while Task Force
Lovelady followed swiftly, with Combat Command Howze in reserve.
- The Erft and the Scotch -
On February 27, Doan's dusty, victorious tankers blasted into
Kerpen, on the Erft Canal, less than nine miles from Cologne.
Task Force Kane had taken Heppendorf and then buttoned up in
Sindorf, north of Colonel Doan's group.
Now it was time to use the reserve. Colonel Howze was ordered
to rush fresh troops past Elsdorf, press on to the Erft Canal
and secure a bridgehead. His chosen leaders were Lt. Colonel
Sam Hogan, and Lt. Colonel Walter B. Richardson, a pair of commanders
who had long maintained friendly rivalry. Each commanded the
33rd and 32nd, respectively. Both were Texans and long-time members
of the "Spearhead" Division. To speed them on their
way, General Rose promised a case of Scotch to the first task
force commander across the vital water barrier.
By 2130 that day, Task Force Hogan had pressed infantry over
a partially destroyed foot bridge at Glentsch, while at Pattendorf,
Richardson's men waded and climbed over a second twisted span.
Although Hogan reached the east bank of the key canal first,
Task Force Richardson was later to get the first bridge across
and thus put the first American tanks on the plain before Cologne.
History does not record the fate of the Scotch.
Within 24 hours after crossing the Erft, 3rd Armored Division
shells were bursting in Cologne. The 991st Field Artillery Battalion,
an attached unit and former New York national guard organization,
registered on the city with giant 155mm guns. Cologne had been
pricked by the point of the "Spearhead"!
Driving relentlessly, Task Force Lovelady met the Reich's
much touted Volkssturm for the first time in Berrendorf. In a
Roman Catholic church, 500 civilians had gathered to wait for
the arrival of American troops. With them were 77 members of
the German "people's army". With invasion at their
doorsteps, these reluctant warriors had chosen to wait in the
place of worship rather than draw arms at local Nazi party headquarters
and fight it out with the Yanks. The Volkssturm was not impressive.
These last-ditch soldiers taken at Berrendorf were just tired
old men with deadly fear in their eyes. Their attitude indicated
the state of German morale. They knew that no defense could stop
the drive to the Rhine. The extensive earthworks and trench systems
which had been steadily constructed during the past five months,
had proved little or no obstacle to advancing tanks and infantrymen
of the 3rd Armored Division chiefly because the "Spearhead"
attack was swift and enemy troops had no opportunity to properly
man their fortifications.
On February 28, Combat Command Howze expanded his bridgehead
across the Erft and enough armor was thrown into the line to
repel a German tank-infantry attack. Meanwhile, other elements
of the division regrouped, preparatory to the assault on Cologne,
which was to be from the northwest, instead of frontally. The
325th Regiment of the 99th Division, and the 4th Cavalry Group
were attached. The 13th Infantry Regiment of the 8th Infantry
Division had been attached to the "Spearhead" throughout
the operation. The stage was set. The bridgehead was adequate.
Jerry found his nerves to be extremely jumpy.
- Luftwaffe Makes Good Try -
During the night of February 28, an estimated 75 German planes
attempted to knock out artillery supporting the operation. It
was a trying night. Over the "Spearhead" positions
there was a constant hum of aircraft, each individual machine
sounding as though it was missing on two cylinders. Then there'd
be the eerie [sic] rising whistle of the bombs and, if they were
close, the unbelievably loud crash. Not one gun position was
hit, although gunners of the 67th Armored Field Artillery Battalion
suffered losses. Jerry lost a number of his precious planes to
ack-ack, some of it fired by the 486th Automatic Anti-Aircraft
"Anti-anything-Jerry" Battalion. No appreciable slowing
of the attack was noted.
Although the Kraut continued to pour artillery, mortar, and
rocket fire on the bridgehead area throughout March 1, Bergheim
and Kenton fell to the attached 395th RCT. The enemy was also
fast losing his grip on those hills, east of the Erft, from which
he had been observing American operations.
- Objective: Cologne -
Again, on March 2, the division plunged into attack. Reconnaissance
cleared an area north-west of Niederaussem and Task Force Richardson
took the town. Task Force Hogan skirted an anti-tank ditch to
clear the small villages of Wiedenfeld and Auenheim, and Combat
Command Hickey, in a coordinated drive by Task Force Doan and
Task Force Kane, took Oberaussem. The 395th Infantry proceeded
to clean up the town of Fortuna and the factory area in that
town. This attached infantry was the unit which took Hill 140,
a slag pile which was the highest ground in the area.
The enemy was tiring visibly as Doan jumped off at 0400 on
the 3rd. Entering Fliesteden against a surprised garrison, his
tankers took many prisoners, one of whom was a colonel. Task
Force Kane pressed on to Mansteden, and Doan added Geyen and
Sinthern, which brought his steel spearhead to four miles from
the outskirts of Cologne.
At Busdorf, Task Force Kane had knocked several armored vehicles,
including self propelled guns, out of his path. Richardson, Lovelady
and Hogan together took Stommeln in the hardest fighting of the
day. Here the tired but determined tankers met enemy armor, mines
and anti-tank fire. Colonel Welborn's force moved forward to
secure the town of Sinnersdorf, approximately four miles from
the Rhine and less than five miles from the limits of Cologne.
On this day, Task Force Hogan had encountered enemy panzer units
in a small place called Monchof. His armor destroyed the enemy,
took the town of Rheidt and used Thunderbolt fighter-bombers
to clear more Kraut tanks from the routes of advance before pushing
on to Stommeln. Now, for the first time, the tankers and armored
infantrymen of the 3rd Armored Division knew definitely that
they were going to lunge for Cologne. They'd suspected as much!
Colonel Prentice E. Yeomans' 83rd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion,
flushed with the opportunity to demonstrate its wares, jumped
off during the night of March 3, 4, with the river as its destination.
The reconnaissance troopers found the town of Roggendorf, protecting
enemy ferry sites, strongly held, so these lightly armored but
swift elements of the "Spearhead" turned north toward
Hackhausen. Here they captured a battery of 105 guns, still hitched
to prime movers, and reached the Rhine at 0400 on March 4, north
of Worringen, the first unit of the First Army to reach the great
water barrier protecting Hitler's inner fortress. Task Force
Lovelady then took Roggendorf and Worringen. Here the two forces
repelled a determined counter-attack mounted with infantry and
tanks.
The division was now on the Rhine in strength. The 4th Cavalry
was engaged in clearing a wooded area north-west of Hackhausen,
and the bulk of the "Spearhead" was ready to direct
its forces at the defenses of Cologne.
- Fall of the Big Town -
At 0710 on March 5, Colonel L.L. Doan's task force was in
Cologne, the first Americans of the First Army to reach that
long sought city. Major General Maurice Rose entered the metropolitan
district soon afterward.
Doan's forward plunging tankers entered Cologne through the
north-west suburbs and were soon in the Binkendorf area. Enemy
resistance here was light. Mines were noticeably absent and underpasses
had been feebly blocked with trolley cars, but not blown.
After taking the airport, where numbers of dual purpose 88's
were knocked out or captured, Task Force Kane also advanced into
the city.
Greater resistance was offered to elements of Combat Command
Boudinot by German elements who strove to keep his Shermans and
Pershings away from the river where ferries were busily engaged
in removing whipped troops to the east bank of the Rhine. In
spite of this resistance Task Force Welborn took eight outlying
towns. Colonel Lovelady's force took three towns, and the 83rd
cleared Langel, Rheinkassel and Kasselberg on the river. The
recon men captured a Panther tank intact after destroying several
others.
As "Spearhead" units moved in for the kill, there
was furious tank and anti-tank warfare. German forces using dual
purpose ant-aircraft guns and Panzerfausts put up a spotty but
vicious series of defenses. The ruins of the city were at first
alive with snipers and machine-gun teams. Systematically the
infantry hunted them out. Finally, nothing but an occasional
sniper, a few bazooka men and several prowling panther tanks
were reported in the city.
On March 6, as our elements probed closer to the river, Jerry
blew the great Hohenzollern Bridge across the Rhine. The pillar
of black smoke rose up almost between the twin spires of Cologne's
famous Dom. An unnatural silence fell over the great metropolis
then. Infantrymen of the 36th Armored Infantry Regiment mopped
up in the ruins. Sporadic mortar fire and artillery crumped loud
in the dead stillness, and a few snipers kept tumbling out of
the high piled ruins. The great cathedral was cleared, and it
seemed that Cologne was swiftly passing into limbo of "rear
area." There was, however, a final, convulsive struggle
in the defense of the metropolis.
A pair of army photographers, T/3 Leon Rosenman, and T/4 James
Bates, shooting motion pictures of a Panther they thought to
be knocked out, were shocked when the big enemy vehicle suddenly
turned to open fire on an American Sherman. The Sherman was hit
and knocked out, but one of the "Spearhead" Pershings
accepted the challenge. After a swift exchange of armor piercing
rounds, the Nazi panzerwagon burst into flame and burned fiercely
in the very shadow of the cathedral. The cameraman got it all
a sequence of battle which ranks high among great war photographs.
Two hours and 15 minutes after the tank dual, Task Force Doan
was on the Rhine. To the left, Colonel Kane's forces also reached
the river, while further to the left, a pocket of resistance
remained.
Task Force Welborn had taken the Ford Motor Plant, north of
the city, on the Rhine, as well as a factory area nearby, while
Lovelady had cleared the town of Merkenich and pushed on. Fuhlingen
also fell to his troops. Colonel Sam Hogan's men, working down
the river bank, took Merheim and Miehl before moving into the
city. The fighting was in its last stages.
By March 7, Cologne was completely cleared by the 3rd Armored
Division and the 104th Infantry Division. It was a dead city,
a place of rubble which represented five years of aerial bombardment
and final invasion by ground forces. The 3rd had come to the
end of another swift drive.
The "Spearhead" had reached the Rhine, first of
the heavyweight First Army. Once, these veterans who had come
from Omaha Beach, through Normandy and France and Belgium, to
pierce the Siegfried line and take the first German town to fall
to an invader since Napoleonic days, had believed that the war
would end on the "sacred" river. Now they all felt
that the battle would go on. Would it be a frontal smash, straight
across? An airborne landing to secure bridge heads? The men of
the "Spearhead" mopped up conquered Cologne and waited.
There was always one more river to cross!
CHAPTER IV
- Remagen Springboard -
There was a strange letdown after the excitement of action.
Cologne was quiet. An occasional artillery piece lobbed shells
over the river, but the "incoming mail" was slight.
There was a time to clean up and a period to perform proper maintenance
on the vehicles: a few drinks to celebrate the occasion - and
plenty of rumors. Someone speculated on the chances that the
3rd might be relieved from further combat. The story was either
sworn accurate or laughed to scorn. Most of the tankers suspected
that they would be going across the Rhine, into Germany: a majority
would have felt somehow left out of the party if, indeed the
"Spearhead" were pulled out of action. These men had
been the first team of the First Army since Normandy. They were
the first through the Westwall, the first to take and hold a
German town. There is an indescribable esprit de corps about
such an outfit. The 3rd had a reputation. The tankers said to
each other: "Call me spearhead!" And they chuckled,
and quipped: "Call me meathead!" But they were proud,
too.
When Major General J. Lawton Collins presented Division Headquarters
Company and Forward Echelon a presidential citation for heroism
in action, he said: "Since the St. Lo days I have commanded
a great many divisions. All of them were fine, but few were great,
and this is one of the great divisions".
Earlier that week, the division Maintenance Battalion had
also been honored by the presentation of a meritorious service
plaque in recognition of day and night labors which had kept
the "Spearhead" rolling forward in continuous battle.
These things were warp and woof to the fabric of high morale.
The 3rd Armored Division expected to cross the Rhine. It was
a foregone conclusion. Therefore, the tankers talked it over,
repaired battle wagons, and waited. Then, of course, the 9th
Armored Division, through a stroke of luck and a dash of brilliance,
secured the Ludendorf Bridge at Remagen. There was no need for
the First Army to create a bridgehead - we had one ready made.
The 3rd Armored Division moved out of Cologne shortly afterward
and crossed the "sacred river" by way of a pontoon
bridge at Honnef. Combat Command Howze had already crossed on
the 20th.
Up ahead, the Big Red One, America's justly famous 1st Infantry
Division, and the 104th Infantry, were engaged in widening the
bridgehead. Close to the Rhine, the "Spearhead" coiled
over acres of Beautiful summer-vacation-lands. On March 24 the
orders came down through combat command channels: the 3rd was
moving out at dawn in full scale attack! This was the beginning
of the big push. There was victory in the air, and it was contagious.
The American 1st, 3rd, and 9th Armies were already across the
Rhine. So were Field Marshal Montgomery's forces. Now General
Courtney Hodges was preparing a haymaker to the heart of Germany,
a drive to isolate the Ruhr! The battering ram he chose for this
stupendous task was Major General J. Lawton Collins' VII Corps
and again, as in the past, the 3rd Armored Division was scheduled
to spearhead the attack.
At 0400 on March 25, the combat commands were rumbling out
of bivouac. They went out along the dawn-dim roads in multiple
columns of spearheads, the 32nd and 33rd Armored Regiment tanks
leading, squat and black in the gloom, with blue flame spitting
from their exhausts. Tank destroyers of the 703rd TD Battalion
followed, clacking rapidly over the cobbles, their long 90mm
guns perfectly balanced in heavy steel turrets. Armored infantrymen
of the 36th, the blitz doughs, rode in personnel half-tracks.
There were the combat engineers of the 23rd, light reconnaissance
units of the 83rd, mobile artillery, and all the other complex
and highly maneuverable elements that make up a modern armored
division. Upon this morning there was no waiting, no wondering,
and no rumors. There was plenty of hard work, though.
The dawn of March 25 was clamorous with motor-sound. On a
wide front the steel fingers reached tentatively forward, two
columns to the right, under General Hickey, two to the left,
under General Boudinot. It was an almost overpowering spectacle
to see and, although you knew that there is no glamour in war,
somehow the thunder of powerful engines, and the clatter of tracks,
the wide grins and genial curses, the guns weaving gently on
their balanced mounts, brought a decided thrill. You could loath
war and its by-products, but you knew that, so long as you lived
you'd always remember, with a little shiver of pride, the morning
when the "Spearhead" moved out to make history in a
drive that isolated Germany's great, industrial Ruhr.
- The 3rd is a Meat Grinder -
The initial attack was launched through the 1st and 104th
Infantry Divisions. Combat Command Boudinot rolled to the left
of the salient, and Combat Command Hickey to the right. Famed
Colonel L. L. Doan again blasted through the German main line
of resistance early in the action, to find deliberate mine fields
and a well dug-in defense. Although the route was strewn with
glass mines, which defied ordinary detection, Task Force Doan
penetrated the defensive crust and pushed forward to seize the
town of Asbach, meanwhile bypassing a German airfield which was
littered with the hulks of destroyed aircraft and parts. Advancing
east against sporadic shows of resistance, Doan took the town
of Schonesberg and crossed the Mehr river.
The "Spearhead" advanced in a series of armored
haymakers. Colonel Doan's tankers ground forward on the extreme
right. To his left, Task Force Kane pushed through a curtain
of small arms fire, artillery, and self-propelled guns to take
Krumscheid and Puscheid. Further to the left, Combat Command
Boudinot met heaviest resistance. Consequently the progress here
was the less spectacular.
Task Force Lovelady, operating to the left of Kane's tankers,
nevertheless went forward to take Wallroth, Oberscheid and Griesenbach
in a grinding offensive. At the end of the day, Fiersbach had
fallen and the armor was still moving ahead.
On the far left, Task Force Welborn immediately engaged heavy
concentrations of tanks, self propelled guns, artillery and small
arms fire. Advancing against heavy opposition, this force seized
Kircheib and worked through a thickly wooded area to cross a
small stream.
The first day of combat had been a war of attrition. The 3rd
Armored Division had assumed the properties of a meat grinder
in the process of chewing up Nazi General von Manteuffel's Fifth
Panzer Army. The Nazi threw his best elements into the defense.
Thoroughly identified during the first day of combat were: the
3rd Panzer Grenadier Division, the 9th and 11th Panzer Divisions,
parts of the 130th Panzer LEHR Division, 340th and 363rd Volksgrenadier
Divisions, and several GHQ units. The result of this day's fighting,
according to one report, was that the enemy left behind "a
zoo-full of Panthers and Tigers!"
- Day and Night Assault -
On March 26 the attack continued with round the clock regularity.
Elements of Combat Command Hickey reported pronounced gains in
spite of dug-in infantry and hasty mines. The nature of these
defenses was the first single indication that the German line
was beginning to break - because on the previous day the mine
fields had been deliberately laid. Time was running out for Jerry.
Doan fought continuously for 72 hours to reach the Dill River.
On the left flank, Combat Command Boudinot still inched ahead
as the enemy fought viciously to repel any threat to his Sieg
River line, which ran roughly parallel to the 3rd Armored Division
flank. Self propelled guns, supported by infantry, defended the
high, wooded ground, and artillery was expended as in Normandy
days of 1944. Disregarding obvious enemy strength, Task Force
Welborn and Task Force Lovelady pounded forward, close air support
aiding their drives.
To the right, Task Force Doan had advanced well beyond and
south of much bombed Altenkirchen. At noon, Task Force Richardson
entered the town against light resistance. The prisoner toll
had risen to 1,000 and the route of advance was a shambles of
smashed German vehicles.
Task Force Welborn, receiving fire from high ground on both
flanks, was still the most desperately beset of the 3rd Armored
Division spearheads. Welborn accepted his losses and ground forward.
Aside from this force of Combat Command Boudinot, the entire
division seemed now to have broken through the first hard crust
of resistance. Tankers gazed through the rolling and wooded hills
of the Hohe Venn and shook their heads in wonder. If this area
had been made the scene of a defensive belt approaching the magnitude
of the Siegfried line, it might have been impenetrable. Instead,
the enemy seemed to be breaking. There was bright sunshine and
warm, spring-like weather.
- Breakthrough! -
On March 27, electrifying news came back over the battle nets.
Task Force Doan had broken into the clear and was smashing through
town after town! Kane and his dusty, triumphant tankers were
advancing as swiftly. Across the hills of Germany there was acrid
dust in the air and the multiple sound of many motors. Along
the churned, dirt roads of this fluid battle ground, the Wermacht's
last reserves were strewn like a child's pile of jackstraws.
Mobile 88's and their prime movers burned sullenly where the
spearhead had passed. French, Belgian and Russian slave laborers,
freed of bondage by this swift wave of allied power, trudged
happily to the rear, shouting and holding aloft the two-fingered
V-for-Victory salute to their Yankee liberators. For the first
time in many months, this show began to look like the last rat
race in Europe.
As usual in armored battle, there were no non-combatants.
Major General Maurice Rose himself engaged the enemy with his
pistol on a lonely stretch of road near Rehe, and aided in the
capture of 12 prisoners.
All around, it was the sort of day for which the "Spearhead"
was designed. It was movement and fire, broken communications
and pockets of resistance to be mopped up. It was the longed-for
all out effort which left liaison men in a rough spot trying
to maintain those vital lines of communication. There was expectancy
in the air, and victory too. It was something like the breakthrough
at Normandy, the same dust in the air - billowing clouds of it,
pungent and stinging, laced with the stink of burning Nazi vehicles.
There was wreckage and there was death, but the men of this big
steel striking force were riding a wave of enthusiasm. They blessed
the so-far lenient weather. The acrid dust pleased them even
as it inflamed already tired eyes.
Task Force Doan took Herborn on the Dill River, then secured
a bridgehead on the far side, while Task Force Kane pressed forward
on his left, also to the river. Kane then cleared the town of
Burg, on the banks of the Dill.
Meanwhile, Combat Command Boudinot, which had encountered
the principal resistance in the drive, went into reserve. Combat
Command Howze took its place. At Weiefeld, anti-tank, small arms
and artillery fire was encountered, but the town was taken and
the advance continued by Task Force Hogan.
During the entire operation the 414th Infantry Regiment of
the 104th Division was attached to the "Spearhead".
Somewhat rested, Combat Command Boudinot went through Howze's
forces in the Herborn area on March 28. Task Force Lovelady,
with Task Force Welborn echeloned to the rear, pushed on against
lightening resistance to seize the important town of Marburg.
As the course of the attack suddenly veered north-east, the 83rd
Armored Reconnaissance battalion was unleashed on the division's
left flank. By nightfall, Yeoman's forces had secured Bottenhorn
and Holyhausen. Combat Command Howze secured the town of Dillenberg,
north of Burg on the Dill River, against light opposition.
By this time prisoners were beginning to pour in. Spot estimates
for the day soared to the 3,000 mark, and many could not be processed
through the division cage on the day of capture due to the rapidity
of the advance and the lack of transportation.
Meanwhile, air reports indicated that the enemy was withdrawing
roughly parallel to the 3rd Armored Division columns, in an attempt
to head off attacking units before the encirclement was complete,
or to shun the inevitable pocket.
- The Magnificent Drive -
March 29 was a day for the historians to remember, and it
all belonged to the 3rd Armored Division! It was a day comparable,
but more gratifying than the occasion in France when the entire
division moved from the Mayenne River to a point beyond Pre en
Pail on the route to Ranes. It was even better than the day in
northern France when the entire division, on the move toward
Charleville, was given a 90 degree change in direction to attack
toward Mons. For, on March 29, led by the free wheeling 83rd,
the "Spearhead" moved more than 90 miles, largely across
country, from the Marburg area to Niedermarsburg - a point less
than 20 miles from the famous tank training grounds at Paderborn,
which was the division's objective. For all practical means,
the startling all-out drive had sealed the doom of the entire
industrial Ruhr, plus German Army Group B under Field Marshal
Model.
In this rapid advance, the route lay almost entirely overland.
Towns which were thought to contain road blocks were bypassed.
The orders were to go through and around enemy resistance and
get to the objective - fast.
The day was overcast with light rains and cool weather. There
was no air support, but none was necessary. The enemy flank had
been turned and there was nothing he could do about this slashing
attack. The towns of Mangeringhausen, Obermarsburg and Drilon
were taken in rapid succession.
Few, if any of the small towns which had been passed, were
damaged by the armored fist of total war. This, indeed, was a
different circumstance from that of the initial bridgehead area
where nearly every village had been either bombed or shelled,
and often both.
Soldiers of the 3rd Armored Division had heard of the German
prisoner of war camps and so-called "slave labor".
Now they saw a small part of that system. Thousands of slave
laborers plodded the dusty road back to freedom. And, everywhere
along the route, trudged the grey-green figures of the Wehrmacht,
hands clasped behind their heads, marching to some distant prisoner
of war camp. Resistance? One report stated that terrain obstacles
and prisoners of war interfered with the advance of the columns!
- The Trap is Closed - A Leader Dies -
On March 30, though, resistance really stiffened as elements
of the SS Panzer training regiment and the SS reconnaissance
regiment from the Sennelager training camp north of Paderborn,
were committed. These picked school troops and students might
be compared to the men of our own armored force center at Fort
Knox, Kentucky.
Mainly the resistance consisted of bazooka teams which fired
at the 3rd Armored Division tanks as they rolled through roads
and paths in wooded areas. Small arms were also used to advantage
by the enemy, but there was a shortage of mortars and artillery.
Several tanks were encountered and swiftly smashed to smoking
junk.
Task Force Welborn encountered a strongly dug-in infantry
defense and some tanks in the area north of Etteln, barely more
than three miles from Paderborn. At approximately six o-clock
in the evening, his column was cut by marauding Panther and Tiger
tanks. The maneuver was a costly one to men of the 3rd Armored
Division, for their general was killed in the following action.
As was so often his custom, General Rose was following the
forward elements of his command. With him was his driver, T/4
Glen Shaunce, and his aide, Major Robert Bellinger. Two other
jeep loads of officers and men, and one armored car, were also
in the general's party.
Unfortunately, General Rose was caught in the center of the
break caused by the enemy in Colonel Welborn's column. Attempting
a dash for freedom, his vehicle was pinned between a tree and
one of the Nazi Panthers.
Accounts vary as to exactly what happened then, but the General
was shot down. Major Bellinger and T/4 Shaunce escaped by dashing
into nearby cover and crawling, separately, from the scene. They
were later rescued by friendly troops.
Bitterly, tankers of Lt. Colonel John Boles' task force, formerly
Task Force Doan, cleared the road block which had cut Welborn's
column, and went on to take Haxtergrund. Here, Task Force Lovelady
also met strong opposition from dug-in infantry and Panzerfaust
teams.
Although Boles had cleared the offending road block, Panther
and Tiger tanks still roamed in the "rear" areas. The
morning after General Rose's body was recovered, a section of
guns from the 703rd Tank Destroyer Battalion destroyed two Tiger
tanks close to the scene of the tragedy.
Within Combat Command Howze, Task Force Hogan seized Wewer
after a sharp fight against tanks, infantry, and a defended mine
field in the town. Task Force Richardson met tank and infantry
opposition too, but the "Spearhead" still ground forward.
Richardson took Nordborchen. The 83rd Armored Reconnaissance
Battalion added Dorenhagen and Eggeringhausen to the long list
of places captured.
The enemy continued to commit his SS training units from the
Paderborn area, plus a GHQ tank battalion and a tank destroyer
unit which was reputed to have 128mm guns mounted on a Tiger
tank chassis. A number of Hungarian prisoners were taken here,
a few with their wives trailing along behind!
- The "Spearhead" Meets the "Hell
on Wheels" -
On April 1, the "Spearhead" had practically accomplished
one of the great drives of World War II, but the satisfaction
of that victory was soured by the news of General Rose's death
and the manner of his dying. There was no slacking off in the
3rd.
Setting the pace for this new month of battle, Task Force
Kane drove swiftly to a historic meeting with the 2nd Armored
Division of the 9th Army, at Lippstadt. Artillery liaison planes
from the two divisions had kept track of ground forces to prevent
any chance [of] shooting up friendly forces. The 2nd "Hell
on Wheels", had come across the north German plain while
the 3rd was making its two-way thrust, first to Herborn and Marburg,
from the Remagen bridgehead, then north, in a brilliant crossing
of the "T", to seal the industrial Ruhr.
Task Force Kane cleared Geseke in its advance to meet the
2nd Armored Division and in so doing destroyed much equipment
and captured a serviceable airfield near the town.
Back at Paderborn, Welborn was first in town, followed by
Lovelady and Task Force Boles. Hogan and Richardson cleared Salzkotten
and secured high ground north-west of Nordborchen to cover the
attack made by Boles, who drove through tank and infantry fire
to clear the factory area and enter the town. General Boudinot
entered the town with the lead troops.
A final count of damage inflicted upon the enemy during this
period, apart from the inspired sweep which cut off vital Ruhr
areas, included the taking of more than 20,000 prisoners of war,
including wounded enemy and enemy hospital personnel overrun
but not evacuated.
The list of destroyed equipment for this drive included: 35
tanks, 31 self propelled guns, 48 artillery pieces, one railway
gun, 40 heavy AA and AT guns, 146 light AA guns, 25 staff cars
and sedans, 1,263 trucks, eight aircraft captured on the ground,
six railway trains, and 15 assault boats. As the week-long period
came to an end, additional ammunition dumps, chemical warfare
dumps, warehouses and quartermaster depots were reported taken
intact.
The drive was finished, but fanatic Nazi's continued to wage
a desperate series of disjointed fights. Columns travelling to
the rear were subject to attack by entrapped forces seeking to
escape the Ruhr, and vehicles, particularly those moving at night,
were often harried by bazooka fire or sniper attempts in secluded
places. The work of supply personnel, bringing up vital rations
and gasoline, was an epic of devotion to duty and high courage
during this period. Also commendable was the effort of the 45th
Armored Medical Battalion which had maintained six separate treatment
sections moving with the task forces.
In recognition of the brilliant drive, the First United States
Army named the great trap the Rose pocket. The "Spearhead"
general had been killed in his last and most important victory.
On March 31, Brigadier General Doyle O. Hickey, who had been
with the division since its desert training in California, assumed
command. General Hickey's Combat Command "A" came under
the leadership of Colonel L.L. Doan, and Lt.Colonel John Boles
assumed command of Task Force X.
As this period ended, the 3rd Armored Division readied itself
for the next move. Where, was not at all certain, but men of
this big, powerful outfit were looking toward the east, and Berlin.
CHAPTER V
- One More River -
The swift drive from the Remagen bridgehead to the Paderborn
and thence to Lippstadt and a link-up with the 9th Army, was
a high spot in 3rd Armored Division history. But there was more
to come. After spending April 3 and 4 mopping up late gains,
the 3rd was relieved from the defense of Lippstadt-Paderborn
and prepared to jump off in a new offensive.
The goal was Germany's Weser River. On April 5, the two veteran
combat commands, "A" under Colonel L.L. Doan, and "B"
commanded by General Truman E. Boudinot, drove for the heart
of Germany.
By dawn of the following day, Task Force Boles had taken Amelunken
on the Weser, to find that enemy engineers had systematically
blown all of the bridge spans. Task Force Kane's veterans ground
ahead in the face of tank and infantry opposition to pocket a
defending force at Tietelsen. Kane bypasses this resistance with
one force while he pushed another group further south.
Within Combat Command Boudinot, Task Force Welborn knifed
south of Kane and took Heerbruck. The entire division was moving
swiftly: Task Force Lovelady cracked through stubborn resistance
to clear Manrode.
During this period of battle, the "Spearhead" was
encountering scattered elements of SS tank and reconnaissance
training units which had been stationed in the Paderborn area,
as well as several replacement battalions and parts of the 1066
and 661st Infantry Regiments of the 166th Infantry Division.
Although the opposition was not of a caliber to be compared with
Ardennes battle groups, a certain desperation and fanaticism
produced bitterly contested local actions. In addition, the enemy
still had a number of 128mm tank destroyers left in the area.
On April 7, all elements of the 3rd Armored Division had reached
the Weser River. The enemy, still smarting from his costly blunder
at Remagen, was now thoroughly blowing his bridges in this late
stage of the campaign.
At the Weser's brink, Task Force Welborn's advance elements
received direct fire from both sides of the stream. The town
was Herstelle. Another of Welborn's probing spearheads reached
Carlshafen, further east. Task Force Lovelady was slowed by soft
terrain, but by the end of the day had succeeded in taking Helmarshausen.
Within Combat Command Doan, Lt. Colonel Clifford Miller, the
self styled "Army brat", and his task force, was slowed
by a blown railway bridge at Godelheim. Task Force Orr found
the river bridge at Wehrden blown and noted many barricades in
the town. Kane's column bagged an airplane assembly plant in
the town of Blankenau.
Mopping up along the river consumed a day, and then on April
9 a crossing was made. Resistance varied from moderate to stubborn,
but 22 towns were taken before sunset. Task Force Hogan cleared
Hardesen and Northeim as Combat Command Howze relieved Doan on
the right. Doan's force went into reserve.
On the far side of the river, Task Force Richardson encountered
12 Panther and Tiger tanks. Wily Richardson bypassed the armor
and drove south.
- Liberation of the Death Camp Slaves -
Continued advances were made through April 10. Thrusting toward
Nordhausen, Welborn took Epschenrode. Task Force Lovelady, hampered
by muddy terrain, nevertheless advanced beyond Grossbodungen.
Colonel Sam Hogan, the colorful Texan, battled armor and mine
fields to reach the small town of Zwinge.
Within Combat Command Doan, Task Force Kane was hampered by
debris in Northeim, but destroyed two Mark-IV tanks and a pair
of grounded airplanes during the day.
On the 10th also, a platoon of the 83rd Armored Reconnaissance
Battalion, led by Lt. Duane Doherty, cleared a V-2 assembly plant
at Kleinbodungen. A number of the huge rockets, completed except
for warheads, lay on jigs where they had been constructed. After
taking a number of prisoners, one of Doherty's men discovered
an underground shaft in the assembly plant. A later examination
proved that he had uncovered one of the Nazi's infamous underground
installations. The reconnaissance soldiers were amazed to find
that the tunnels ran more than 640 meters beneath the surface,
and radiated off through several kilometers of sandstone and
clay formations. Although no machinery was set up in the tunnels,
all available space was crammed with various types of high explosives.
During this period the 1st Infantry Division was coming up
to the left rear of the 3rd. Attached to the "Spearhead"
were: the 1st Battalion of the 18th Infantry, 1st Division; the
3rd Battalion of the 47th Infantry, 9th Division; and the 2nd
Battalion of the 414th Infantry, 104th Division. There was no
lack of crack doughboy support.
Although the taking of Nordhausen did not constitute the heaviest
fighting of April 11, that city will live forever in the memories
of 3rd Armored Division soldiers as a place of horror. Much bombed
Nordhausen was the center of a concentration camp - slave labor
system which, in its utter disregard for human life and dignity
must rank with the hell holes of Maidenek and Buchenwald. The
inmates of the city concentration camp, the former Caserne Boelcke,
were representative of all nations: they were the political prisoners
of Europe, the men who, so long as Nazi Germany ruled - were
doomed to worse than death.
At Nordhausen, called the Death Camp by prisoners, hundreds
of corpses lay sprawled over the huge compound's ragged acres.
They lay in contorted heaps, half-stripped, mouths gaping in
the dirt and straw: or they were piled naked, like cordwood,
in the corners of great steel and cement barracks. Most horrible
was the sight of the living among the dead. Side by side with
the bodies of their comrades, sunken-eyed skeletons of men moaned
weakly or babbled in delirium. In the filth of their own dysentery,
systematically starved, abused, and finally abandoned to die
unattended, those who still lived when Combat Command Boudinot
sped through Nordhausen, were whisked off to emergency hospitals
by American medical men. Many were without hope of recovery.
Major Martin L. Sherman, a division medical officer, estimated
that there was little chance of more than half of the pitiful
starvation cases to survive.
From the concentration camp at Nordhausen, the political prisoners
had worked in an efficient underground factory north of the city,
called "Dora", and at the V-2 assembly works at Kleinbodungen.
Under brutal and unsanitary conditions, the emaciated men had
labored in the labyrinths of underground shafts which had been
dug into a hill for a distance of more than two miles. Here they
constructed V-1 robots and V-2 weapons as well as parts for Junkers
airplane motors. Although V-3, purportedly a secret anti-aircraft
device, was undergoing experimentation at Dora, few of the political
prisoners were assigned to its development. Those who were put
on V-3 manufacture, according to the eyewitness accounts, were
segregated and finally murdered to preserve the secret of that
which they had seen.
Working hours for these unfortunates were as long as 16 hours
a day, and lagging was discouraged by beatings administered by
SS guards, and by periodic hangings of alleged slackers as an
object lesson. The starving prisoners, who were fed four ounces
of black bread and a liter of soup each day, dragged themselves
desperately until at last they collapsed, were allowed to die
unattended, and then were shoveled into cremation furnaces on
the premises. In the last week of its being, so many men had
died at Nordhausen and Dora that the furnaces were unable to
cope with all of the bodies. Thousands were therefore left in
piles where they had been dropped.
Dora was efficient in a characteristic Nazi way, but to the
shocked eyes of American fighting men, the camp was the most
complete condemnation of Hitlerism yet exposed. The tankers of
the 3rd would never again doubt the reason for their fighting.
While General Doyle O. Hickey, chewing savagely on his pipe,
surveyed the gagging horror of Nordhausen, his old elite Combat
Command "A" took Herzberg, reducing a strong roadblock
in the process. Task Force Kane cleared Osterode in bitter fighting,
using Thunderbolt bombers to attack defending tanks. Between
Nordhausen and Osterode, Combat Command Howze swept the defenses
of several fortified towns. The Yanks were mad and mean after
what they had witnessed. German forces attempted to halt the
avalanche: reeled and fell back instead.
On the following day, April 12, the attack was again pushed.
Advance elements sped through Sangerhausen and, on April 13,
continued to the Saale River. Here again all bridges were blown,
but the ground flattened as the 3rd Armored Division left the
Harz mountains behind its left flank.
- Britons Liberated -
The town of Eisleben was declared an open city. At nearby
Polleben a British prisoner of war camp was overrun, liberating
many officers and men. Some of these Britons had been prisoners
since Dunkirk, others had been taken the Western Desert or in
Crete. Several, who had accompanied the "Spearhead"
columns for two days because of evacuation difficulties, wanted
to continue with the division.
Task Force Lovelady encountered strong 88mm fire during the
day and found the bridge blown at Laschwitz. Task Force Richardson
advanced to Alsleben and was here taken under direct fire. The
force was ordered back to use another bridge then in the process
of building. Only Colonel Sam Hogan found a partially intact
span, a damaged railway bridge at Netben, and was able to push
infantry across.
On April 14, the division crossed the Saale on two bridges
built during the preceding night by Lt. Colonel Lawrence Foster's
23rd Armored Engineer Battalion. Task Force Welborn lanced straight
into the blue, reaching the Mulde River south of Dessau, on that
day. This force met elements of the Scharnhorst Volksgrenadier
Division which had been formed, about Easter-time, of officer
candidates and veteran personnel: the Potsdam and the von Hutten
Volksgrenadier Divisions, also made up of OCS material and veteran
frontkampfers. The men of these three divisions were as near
to being crack soldiers as any battle formations committed by
the enemy since the Ardennes.
On the same day, Task Force Lovelady struck heavy resistance,
but continued to advance. Hogan hacked through stiffening lines
of resistance to clear an airport in the outskirts of Kothen.
- Bridgehead on the Mulde -
Sensitive on the subject of bridges, German engineers left
a wrecked span across the Mulde where Task Force Welborn halted
on April 15. Infantry of his force, however, crossed and secured
a bridgehead. Meanwhile, Lovelady's veterans cleared the towns
of Thurland and Kleinleipzig (which later were the scenes of
bitter fighting after German forces had infiltrated through the
spearheading armor). Colonel Hogan cleared all of the north-east
and Richardson secured the small town of Frenz and proceeded
toward the larger place of Bernburg. He met fanatic resistance
in Unterpeissen.
All along the division front resistance stiffened perceptibly.
Towns which had been bypassed and thought clear, suddenly disgorged
a complement of German troops who harried supply operations in
rear areas. Infantry from Colonel Boles task force was used to
clear Meilendorf and Kornetz, Quellendorf and Reupzig. These
places were defended by fanatics wielding Panzerfausts and small
arms for the most part. Colonel Orr's forces occupied several
small towns, and the 83rd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion sent
patrols which took Rendin, Thalheim and Sandersdorf. The recon
troopers discovered that the larger towns of Wolfen and Bitterfeld,
near the Mulde River, were more strongly fortified.
At this time the "Spearhead" Division was holding
down a struggling 40 mile front with many uncleared, yet bypassed
towns in the rear areas. The terrain, however, was favorable.
It was flat farm country dotted by numerous small towns, all
connected by excellent road systems. To the south of Dessau was
a large patch of woods through which Task Force Welborn had advanced
on the autobahn. To the division's north was the Elbe, and to
the east, the Mulde. On this front the armor was facing the greater
part of three divisions, each averaging 4,000 of Germany's last,
well trained reserves, plus a scattering of other miscellaneous
units. It was a condition which, even at this stage of the war,
demanded prompt action and close attention. Fortunately, the
division had sufficient mobility to strike the enemy before he
could become fixed in any one position.
The Mulde bridge operation, meanwhile, continued to confront
Task Force Welborn on April 16. Short of infantry to begin with,
he found German artillery extremely heavy and accurate on the
bridging site. After having considerable engineer equipment destroyed
by enemy fire, Welborn was ordered , by Army, to discontinue
spanning operations and to withdraw his infantry from the east
bank. This he did on April 17.
While Colonel Welborn was sweating out his bridgehead on the
Mulde, Task Force Lovelady cleared enemy resistance from Raguhn,
west of the stream which divided the town, while Richardson entered
Bernburg. The significance of these moves was that the Harz mountain
pocket had been effectively sealed and the capture of the more
than 80,000 troops in that pocket made inevitable. It was the
second such pocket that the 3rd Armored Division had helped to
close in a month of combat, the first being the Ruhr - named
the Rose Pocket, in memory of Major General Maurice Rose, where
374,000 prisoners of war were captured.
- Mop Up Before Dessau -
Task Force Hogan continued to clear Kothen, while one battle
group went to Klepzig, there to encounter a road block, artillery,
mortar fire, small arms and bazooka defenses. The German defenders
were making good use of their big, clumsy, but often deadly panzerfausts.
However, Klepzig was cleared and later, Merzein, too.
On the following day, Task Force Boles took Libbesdorf and
Kochstedt, west of Dessau, encountering a mine field in the course
of operations. Colonel Orr's men swept the woods south of Dessau.
During the early morning hours of April 17, Task Force Lovelady's
CP in Thurland was overrun by 150 enemy infantrymen in a well
planned and coordinated infantry-commando attack. The town was
not retaken until late in the afternoon when men of the 83rd
Armored Reconnaissance Battalion slugged their way back in.
Meanwhile, Hogan's elements had entered the town of Aken,
on the Elbe, and Orr's battle group maintained pressure on a
road junction near the town of Torten, south of Dessau.
Task Force Richardson, ordered to attack toward Bobbau-Steinfurth,
promptly nicknamed "Bobby-sox" by the tankers, was
counter-attacked from the direction of the town. Richardson parried
the blow with artillery and fighter bombers, accounting for eight
enemy tanks in so doing. By the end of the day his forces had
reached Bobbau-Steinfurth.
Task Force Hogan took all of Aken on the 18th, and one of
his battle groups contacted the XIX Corps in Poszig, near Bernburg.
The 83rd, with Lt. Colonel Miller's battle group attached, attacked
toward Wolfen and Greppin. Miller's tankers took Rodgen and Thalheim
against mortar and artillery fire, and the 83rd pushed through
two towns to Renden. Here, the enemy counter-attacked with three
tanks and about 50 infantrymen. The attack was thrown back and
the town was taken. In Bobbau-Steinfurth, meanwhile, Richardson
was experiencing another counter-attack. He also held firm and,
on the 19th, mopped up the area.
Colonel Miller's forces entered Wolfen on the 19th, and Task
Force Hogan sent a group to clean up the area between Wolfen
and Bobbau-Steinfurth. The next day Wolfen and Greppin were firmly
in "Spearhead" hands. The preliminaries were over.
Commanders pored over maps and studied the blue phase lines and
the routes into Dessau.
- Dessau and The Elbe -
To 3rd Armored Division Texans, April 21 was proper for the
entry into Dessau: it was San Jacinto day! Task Force Welborn
attacked from the south, and Boles spearheaded through Alten
to enter the city. Hogan took Kleinkuhnau and Grosskuhnau, encountering
road blocks, small arms, mortar and artillery fire. Richardson,
another Texas tanker, drove into Jessnitz.
Resistance stiffened in Dessau on the 22nd of April, with
shellfire and small arms the principal opposition, but on the
following day all of the town was cleared. Sgt. Bill Wascom,
of the 391st Armored Field Artillery Battalion, who had fired
his outfit's first shell in Normandy, sent battalion's 170,100th
105mm projectile whistling into German lines. The campaign was
over.
- Campaign Kaput -
Weary tankers, red eyed and grimy, tooled their big Shermans
and Pershings back over the roads of conquest. The division,
as usual, had been the cleaving edge of Major General J. Lawton
Collins' crack VII Corps. As usual, the "Spearhead"
came out of battle with high honors - and vacancies. Lt. Colonel
Prentice E. Yeomans, of the 83rd, had been killed in action at
Zschepkau. Lt. Colonel Matthew Kane had been wounded. Since crossing
the Rhine there had not been a single division general staff
section which had not lost an officer. Some of the latter were
lucky enough to return safely after being retaken by friendly
troops. Among them were Lt. Colonel Wesley A. Sweat, G-3, and
Lt. Colonel Jack A. Boulger, G-1.
By April 25, the 3rd Armored Division was out of the line
and out of contact with the enemy: it was one of the few in more
than ten months of almost continuous battle. The 23,879 prisoners
taken in the drive to Dessau, plus a number captured in rear
areas, boosted division totals over the 75,000 mark - more than
five times "Spearhead" strength! To the division's
credit was another long drive, 145 miles from Paderborn to the
Elbe. Here, to observe strategic coordination with advancing
Russian armies, the American drive halted. At long last, Germany
was breaking up. There could be no mistake: the war in Europe
was very close to an end. Thirteen days later the end was officially
announced. To the weathered veterans of battle, the news was
almost anti-climax.
South of the Harz mountains in the Sangerhausen area, men
of the 3rd Armored Division rested in comfortable billets, learned
that reveille is still practiced in the American army, and tried
to forget about K-rations and foxholes.
These men who had come up the long, dusty roads from Omaha
Beach and St. Jean de Daye, through France and Belgium and Germany,
through the flaming towns and the best defenses of a fanatic
enemy, felt the comfortable relief of a hard job, well done.
Now they might relax for the moment. They did. And they wondered,
too - they wondered where the trail led from these quiet towns
in occupied Germany ..
There was always the far east. So long as the United States
remained at war there would be need of tanks in the American
scheme of battle. 3rd Armored Division soldiers knew that no
fighting force in the world could claim supremacy over the "Spearhead".
In view of that fact, whether the 3rd would again be called upon
to lead the first Americans in total, irresistible combat, was
a matter for God, and General Marshall to decide.
THE END
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