Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II

The Western Front, March 23, 1945

In war, the farther forward you are, the more you know about the immediate situation but the less you know about the overall situation. The farther to the rear you are, just the opposite is true. When these views conflict, the American soldier is trained to use his own initiative and judgment.

This was the case when CCB of the 9th Armored Division suddenly encountered the Ludendorff bridge intact. They immediately tried to capture the bridgehead and depended on the rest of their division and corps to back them up later. When General Milliken, III Corps commander, reported the seizing of the bridgehead to General Hodges, Hodges told him to put the troops necessary to secure the bridgehead across and await further orders. When Hodges called General Bradley to report the successful coup, Bradley was elated; however, his excitement was toned down somewhat when Gen. Harold R. Bull, a British staff officer from SHAEF, told him he must release four divisions of the 12th Army Group.

There has been some disagreement among historians as to exactly what happened, but it was obvious that General Bull was not interested in doing anything that would de-emphasize the role of the 21st Army Group.

Bradley disagreed with losing four divisions at this time and called Eisenhower directly. After Bradley explained the situation, Eisenhower approved a limited buildup in the bridgehead. Bradley passed this information to Hodges, who in turn decided to order General Collins to bring VII Corps to shore up the northern flank of the bridgehead.

During the early planning of Operation Overlord, the feeling existed in SHAEF headquarters that the British had taken the brunt of the war for many years and should therefore have a major role in the final destruction of Germany. Eisenhower faced subtle pressure from Churchill on down to give the British a more important part in the battle of western Europe. During the Normandy landings, the 21st Army Group under Montgomery played a major part. Montgomery realized that the British did not have sufficient replacements to sustain heavy losses, as the Americans could because of their larger pool of replacements. Even allowing for this, the British Second Army and the Canadian First Army put up a powerful fight in Normandy. Montgomery, due to his inane ultra-conservativeness, failed to exploit his opportunities in the eastern sector of the Normandy bridgehead, and as a result, the British and Canadian role was soon eclipsed by the brilliant exploitation of the Saint-Lô breakthrough by the newly formed 12th Army Group under General Bradley.

Since the First Army’s arrival on the German border, Eisenhower had encouraged a broad front strategy. He apparently felt that as long as the Germans put up a defense, it was very important to prevent any salient developing that could be cut off by the enemy. Many disagreed with this strategy, although it seemed to work.

Now that all of the Allied armies were drawn up along the Rhine, the situation changed drastically. As of February 23, when the major offensive in the Rhineland started, the Germans had seventy-three divisions opposing seventy Allied divisions. Although the German divisions were greatly weakened, they still held a large portion of the Siegfried line to the south and were still capable of putting up a great fight. Since the later stages of the Battle of the Bulge, practically all production of Panther and Tiger tanks had been committed to the western armies. The Germans were now desperately defending their homeland, and many were determined to carry out Hitler’s orders to yield no ground and fight to the last man.

In the early planning for the Rhine crossings, there appeared to be little advantage in attempting a crossing in the Bonn-Remagen area. The hills on the east bank were high, and observers on them could completely dominate the flat, rolling plains on the west bank. The terrain was similar to that in the Ardennes. The limited road nets required penetration of some fifty miles before the troops could swing north and east.

In spite of the Remagen bridgehead, Field Marshal Montgomery insisted on even more control and urged Eisenhower to transfer Hodges’s First Army to the 21st Army Group. Although Eisenhower believed that the main effort should come north of the Ruhr in the 21st Army Group area, he was reluctant to take the First Army from Bradley.

Although Eisenhower’s head may have been with the logic of a strong offensive north of the Ruhr, his heart remained with the 12th Army Group and his American troops. He suspected, according to many historians, that by turning the First Army over to Montgomery, he would have held it back, and the 21st Army Group would have advanced beyond them toward Berlin to gain more glory for the British.

General Marshall, back in Washington, also opposed this move. Eisenhower finally told Montgomery that he would consider giving the First Army a more northern role in the final offensive, provided it remained under the 12th Army Group. Montgomery said he would rather go without the First Army under those circumstances.

March 23 was the date for the 21st Army Group’s massive assault across the Rhine River. While all of the big preparations were to assist the 21st Army Group, Patton’s Third Army made a quick, unexpected crossing at Oppenheim. This undoubtedly miffed Montgomery as the Third Army had stolen his thunder a few hours prior to his gigantic crossing.

Bradley had two armies across the Rhine, the First at the Remagen bridgehead and the Third in the area of Oppenheim. Eisenhower now unleashed the 12th Army Group with priority equal to that of the 21st Army Group. This was all Hodges and Patron were looking for. The SHAEF plan for the final assault on Germany called for the 21st Army Group to cross the Rhine north of the Ruhr. The American First Army was to break out of the Remagen bridgehead south of the Segan River. The VII Corps, on the northern flank of the First Army, was to drive due east across the Dure River, continue until it could swing north and envelop the southern flank of the Ruhr Pocket, and eventually meet up with the Ninth Army coming from the north. The Third Army, breaking out of its bridgehead at Oppenheim, would swing north and east to secure bridgeheads across the Main River. The First and Third Armies would then proceed from Frankfurt and Kassel to the north and east. From this point on, the objective of the 12th Army Group was to seek out and destroy all German forces.

The Remagen Bridgehead

The 3d Armored Division left Cologne on March 20 to assemble near Honnef, preparatory to crossing the Remagen bridge. Our division artillery had accumulated considerable ammunition, because it was normal practice when a division was in a holding position to fire at German targets of opportunity. Not wanting to exhaust the combat load of ammunition in the ready racks, we stored the extra ammunition on the ground.

When the division was ordered to move, the division artillery commander was not about to leave this ammunition there, because 105mm ammunition was hard to come by. A quartermaster truck company was ordered up from COMZ to haul the additional ammunition.

The main road to Remagen ran down the west bank of the Rhine, an area of mostly flat plains, a few low-lying hills, and numerous villages. The column sometimes had to proceed under direct observation of German artillery observers across the river. Where the road was exposed, engineers had improvised camouflage nets hung from telephone lines.

After our columns passed down this road, they were followed by the quartermaster truck company bringing the ammunition. About halfway between Cologne and Bonn, the German artillery had knocked down a telephone pole and brought the camouflage net down for a distance of some two hundred yards. When this happened, the infantry captain in charge of the area told the lieutenant in charge of the village just north of him to send the trucks. They waited until just after the German shells landed, then released the trucks one at a time, hoping they could get across the open area before the next round came in. This procedure worked well for a while, but their luck soon ran out.

As one particularly slow truck reached the halfway point, a German shell exploded directly in front of it. The driver panicked and slammed on the brakes, and the crew hit the ditch on the side away from the river. From his position a hundred yards to the south, the captain called for the crew to come down the ditch toward him.

The crew panicked and froze in place. The captain realized that if they stayed there, the truck would be hit, and if the ammunition exploded they would be killed instantly.

The captain crawled down the ditch himself and told the men to follow him. At the same time, a second round hit to the rear of the truck, and the explosion set the tarp on fire. Just as they got back to the village, the truck exploded. Fortunately, the captain and the truck crew had reached a safe position, and no one was injured.

The truck crew was really shaken; this was the first time they had encountered direct enemy fire. As COMZ troops, they were used to working in relative safety, and it never occurred to them that they would be exposed to this type of danger. Not until they were in the relative safety of a basement in the village did they feel secure.

The 3d Armored Division moved into an assembly area southwest of Bonn near Königswinter. Although First Army had attempted to expand the bridgehead, the bridge was struck numerous times by direct fire from German 88s and by indirect fire from larger artillery. Many air attacks had been made, although the antiaircraft battalions discouraged German planes from making a pass at the bridge itself. The Germans even fired a V2 rocket from the Netherlands and struck a house in the village nearby. Although engineers erected several pontoon bridges, they made a valiant attempt to save the Ludendorff bridge. The full span on the upstream side was still intact, and the signalmen had run numerous communication wires across the bridge. In spite of these efforts, the weakened bridge collapsed on March 15, carrying a number of engineers and signalmen to their deaths.

We crossed into the bridgehead on the morning of March 23 on a pontoon bridge at Honnef. The engineers lashed large pontoons close together with treadways to make rafts to carry the heavy M26 tanks. Our Super M26 made the crossing in good shape. The division joined the VII Corps, which was massing its strength on the north side of the bridgehead.

Envelopment of the Ruhr Pocket

With the Ninth Army bridgehead north of the Ruhr and the First Army bridgehead south of the Ruhr at Remagen, the Allies were now prepared to launch a massive double envelopment. The 2d Armored Division (Hell on Wheels) would lead the assault on the north. The VII Corps of First Army led by the 3d Armored Division (Spearhead) would lead the assault on the south.

The 2d and 3d Armored Divisions were the only heavy armored divisions left after the 1943 reorganization converted the remaining divisions into light armored divisions. The heavy armored divisions had 232 medium tanks compared to 168 medium tanks for the light armored divisions. The tanks plus the accompanying maintenance and supply organizations gave the heavy armored division much greater staying power.

Since Normandy, these two divisions had worked closely in every major operation. The men of these divisions knew that they were part of the first team and were destined to become the main effort of the Allied armies in the west until the end of the war in Europe.

Plans for enveloping the Ruhr Pocket were highly innovative and brilliantly carried out. Normally, the flank penetration would be limited to ten to twelve miles. In the envelopment of the Ruhr Pocket, we were planning an entirely different ball game. The armored columns would move out rapidly and make extremely deep penetrations along relatively narrow fronts. Air cover would let them know what was ahead and alert them to any serious threats to their flanks.

The First Army assault from the Remagen bridgehead, with VII Corps in the lead, started on March 25. The attack concentrated on a narrow area between the Segan River and the Land River. The Germans opposed our corps with elements of three volksgrenadier divisions, one parachute division, and three panzer divisions plus separate armored groups and combat engineers. The German units had been decimated, and few were anywhere near full combat strength.

The 3d Armored Division, leading the VII Corps, moved out at dawn on March 25 in four columns. Combat Command B took the two northern columns and CCA took the two southern columns. Combat Command R followed the two middle columns, and the 83d Recon Battalion followed the north column of CCB. The division was virtually back to full strength in tanks and other equipment. The older men who had survived combat felt like veterans and took great pride in imbuing the new replacements with the accomplishments of the Spearhead Division. Morale was good, but we knew we had a tough fight ahead of us.

Although the Germans had been greatly weakened, they were now fighting desperately for their homeland.

The rugged terrain afforded them excellent defensive possibilities. The division had been heavily bloodied so far, which humbled the survivors. We had also sustained great losses in tanks and other combat equipment.

The battle-hardening experience of recovery, evacuation, repair, maintenance, and replacement had developed a strong mutual respect between the combat soldiers and the maintenance soldiers, who depended on one another for their survival.

The division’s new objective was Altenkirchen, headquarters of the 15th German Army. Combat Command A immediately ran into heavy tank and antitank fire on the southern flank. Combat Command B, on the north, ran into even heavier resistance from a kampfgruppe of Panther and Tiger tanks, which outgunned our M4 Shermans. Although CCB had three of the new M26 Pershings spread out between the two columns, they did not begin to match the twenty to thirty Panthers and Tigers.

The M26 Super Pershing was in this group, but the maintenance crew had to nurse it along because it was overheating. The extra weight of the armor and the extremely rugged terrain put a much heavier load on the engine. The maintenance crew constantly adjusted the V belts on the coolant fans to try to rectify the problem. This helped somewhat, but it was not until we got into open country that the tank became fairly reliable.

Late on the afternoon of March 25, I left CCB in the Altenkirchen Woods, north of the city, and headed back to the maintenance battalion near Honnef. We had had considerable losses that day, and I wanted to submit my combat loss report in order to get replacements as quickly as possible.

I was traveling with CCB on the northern route just south of the Sieg River. The 78th Infantry Division was deployed along the south bank of the river. A regimental combat team of the 1st Infantry Division was traveling eastward in a truck convoy along the same route as I tried to head west. At one point, the road crested the top of a hill where the trucks were exposed to observation from the Germans across the river to the north. The Germans started interdictory fire.

Normally, the trucks would slow down in the defiladed position, then race rapidly across the open space one at a time. Due to the traffic jam farther down the road, the trucks were bumper to bumper on top of the hill.

The infantrymen bailed out and took cover on the south side of the road. One of the trucks had already been hit and the top was blasted off.

I reasoned that sooner or later the Germans would score a direct hit on the trucks and set them on fire, and I would not be able to get across the road. I figured that the Germans were firing a single 155mm howitzer because of the size of the explosion and time interval between rounds—approximately twenty to twenty-five seconds, which was all the time I had to get across the four-hundred-yard opening. I looked at the sweep second hand on my watch, gave Wrayford the countdown, and sure enough the next round came in right on time. Wrayford already had the Jeep in four-wheel drive in low gear. We took off in a cloud of dust and screamed across the top of the hill. We crouched down in the Jeep to where we could barely see over the windshield. After a lot of skidding on the soft, loose dirt on the shoulder, we reached the crest in about eighteen seconds. We heard the next round coming in and ducked as low as we could. As we passed through a slight depression, with our heads just below the level of the edge of the embankment, the shell exploded about fifteen feet from the edge of the embankment, and the blast went over our heads. Wrayford was driving like a runaway racehorse and never veered off his course for a second. The concussion seemed to move the Jeep to the side, but we screamed along amid a cloud of flying fragments and falling clods of dirt. When we reached the other side, we kept on going.

By this time, VII Corps had shattered the northern flank of the German 15th Army, and the division started moving much faster. The situation now became highly fluid, similar to that after the breakout in Nonnandy, but the conditions were different. The terrain was still rugged, and it was difficult to maintain contact among columns. German communications were still somewhat intact, and they continued to put up numerous roadblocks and counterattack from the flanks.

First Army’s overall tactical plan called for a deep penetration so rapid that we would get completely through their advance communication zone. By the early morning of March 28, the division had slashed through Herborn and Marburg and was ready to swing north. In less than three days, it had driven seventy miles (more than a hundred miles by road), which was farther than the Germans had driven in the first three weeks of the Battle of the Bulge.

The division was ordered to move rapidly to the north to meet up with the Ninth Army in the vicinity of Paderborn.

The 2d Armored Division was driving hard across the northern border of the Ruhr. We knew that if we could connect with the Ninth Army, we would completely cut off major elements of the German army in the Ruhr Pocket. The division fanned out, each of its six columns with four P47 dive-bombers over it during the daylight hours.

Even though we were deep inside German territory, our complete domination of the air gave us tremendous superiority. All opposition was bypassed where possible, and if a column became bogged down another would outflank the roadblock. Additional battalions from the 1st and the 104th Infantry Divisions were assigned to the task forces.

On the night of March 28, I left CCB with my combat loss report. On the morning of the twenty-ninth, I returned to Marburg and headed north, traveling alone, to try to catch up with the division. Whenever I left the combat command in the evenings, I always made it a practice to go by headquarters and look at the G2 map. It was important to know the next day’s objectives and the routes the columns would follow. When I made the return trip, I wanted to follow the road the combat command had been on. In a fast-moving situation such as this, the Germans were cleared only to the hedgerows. As a liaison officer traveling alone, I knew I was particularly vulnerable.

About ten miles north of Marburg, with the windshield down and Wrayford driving at our top speed of sixty-five miles an hour, we suddenly came to a Y in the road. For a moment I was not sure which was the main road and which was the secondary road. I took a guess and told Wrayford to turn to the right. We had gone about a hundred yards when it hit me and I screamed, “Stop! Dammit let’s get the hell out of here fast!”

Wrayford slammed on the brakes, turned so fast that he nearly flipped the Jeep, then headed back at top speed in the opposite direction. When we got back to the road junction, we stopped to look at the map again.

I heard a voice call out, “Are you from the Third Armored?”

I looked in the direction of the voice, and on a knoll about fifteen feet above the road to my right I saw a couple of GIs in their armored car. They were too well camouflaged to be seen when we came down the road the first time.

“Yes, we’re with CCB and we’re trying to catch up with the column,” I replied.

The sergeant, from the 83d Recon, told me I was on the right road but had taken the wrong fork. The road to the left was the main road, and the column was somewhere between this point and Paderborn. Had we continued down the road to the right another hundred yards, we would have met a German roadblock that faced our roadblock back at the Y. They were sweating each other out.

As we headed north up the main road, I contemplated what had just happened. Why had I suddenly decided to tell Wray-ford to stop and turn around? It finally dawned on me. The road that we had taken was covered with dust. A main paved highway would never be covered with dust unless no traffic had been on it for some period. Had our tank columns taken this road, the dust would have been blown to one side and we would have seen evidence of tank tracks. I was so used to this that I had taken it for granted. My thoughts had undoubtedly saved our lives. Many times, God, in his infinite mercy, has strange ways of communicating with us.

The division launched its attack at 0600 from Marburg on the morning of March 29 and continued to attack relentlessly until 2200 that evening. The division traveled in four roughly parallel columns from three to five miles apart. By 2200, elements of the division had driven 90 miles north (118 miles by road). In the history of land warfare this was the longest armored advance against an enemy in a twenty-four hour period. Even Desert Storm could not equal this record.

Taking advantage of the rugged country, the Germans put heavy roadblocks in the narrow defiles between the hills. Combat Command B, on the extreme right, was alert to possible counterattack from a German volksgrenadier division reported somewhere to our east. One CCB column suddenly found itself in a narrow defile under heavy fire from German automatic weapons and panzerfausts.

The Germans fired the panzerfausts directly down from a rock ledge some thirty feet above the highway and struck the tanks on their thin deck armor. The column was stopped cold. When our infantry tried to infiltrate around them, the Germans moved to another position and continued firing. Here was another example of how a small group of determined soldiers with small arms and panzerfausts could hold up a major column. The Germans held the column up until they were reinforced and a major engagement developed. The 104th Infantry Division finally sent reinforcements, and CCB bypassed the area. By using infantry to take over and allow the armor to leapfrog around, the advance could continue unabated. This type of maneuver went on continuously throughout the entire division area.

Combat Command B headed toward Paderborn. It was the site of the German panzer training center, which was comparable to Fort Knox in the United States, and reportedly had two training battalions of thirty to forty Panther and Tiger tanks each. There were also numerous miscellaneous units of antiaircraft troops and air force personnel who had been inducted into the infantry. This made a formidable defending force.

Major General Maurice Rose Is Killed in Action

As the battle grew closer to Paderborn, the concentration of American and German troops in a small area became more dense. Our columns constantly crossed over German columns, and in some instances our columns crossed over one another. During one such incident, Gen. Maurice Rose was trying to pass up to the task force commander’s half-track when a German tank column cut into our column. General Rose’s driver slammed on the brakes and brought the Jeep to a quick halt as it came up against the rear of a King Tiger.

Suddenly, the young German tank commander, armed with a burp gun, opened his turret hatch and started screaming at the American general. The general, his driver, and his aide got out of the Jeep and held up their hands. For some reason, the German tank commander became extremely agitated and kept pointing to Rose and hollering at him, all the while gesturing toward the general’s pistol.

In the armored force, officers carried their pistols in shoulder holsters. It was reported that Rose carried a second pistol in a hip holster on his web belt around his waist.

What happened is a matter of conjecture; however, we believe that the general thought that the tank commander wanted him to surrender his pistol. When he lowered his arms to release his belt, the German tank commander thought Rose was going to draw his pistol. In a screaming rage he fired his burp gun and struck Rose in the head, killing him instantly. As the general’s body pitched forward, Major Bellinger, his aide, and Technician Fifth Grade Shaunch, his driver, took off and under cover of darkness escaped into the woods. Major General Maurice Rose was the first and only division commander killed in World War II in the European theater.

Right after the Battle of the Bulge, in early February, Generals Rose and Patton reportedly had a conversation. Rose had served under Patton in the 2d Armored Division. Patton said that when his time came, he would like to the in battle leading his troops. Rose had replied that he did not think anything this glamorous would happen to him, that he probably would be killed in an automobile accident after the war was over. Two months later, General Rose had been killed in action leading his troops. Several months after the war was over, General Patton died as the result of an automobile accident. Such a twist of fate was one of the great ironies of war.

The news of General Rose’s death shocked the men in the division. Although few knew him personally, those who had survived since Normandy, when he became our division commander, knew him by reputation. My closest contact was when I had the honor of receiving a Bronze Star from him during a decoration ceremony in Werbomont, Belgium, right after the Battle of the Bulge. We stood at attention as the general passed down the line to each man. When he got to me, he stepped forward, pinned the medal on my combat jacket, stepped back, and said, “Congratulations, Lieutenant.”

“Thank you, sir,” I said, and threw him one of my smartest VMI salutes. He returned the salute and stepped to the next man. For a brief moment he looked me straight in the eye, and I returned the look. I felt as though I had just been knighted by a king.

To a soldier, a general was surrounded by an aura of mystique. Although from time to time a soldier may have felt that the orders coming down to him were stupid, he still had to believe that, when the chips were down, his general was looking after him and would make the right decisions. A healthy respect for one’s general was an essential part of esprit de corps, which was an important part of morale. The higher the morale, the better the chances for survival. At the time of his death, General Rose had been key to the division’s survival.

Annihilation of a Task Force

Following General Rose’s death, confusion was rampant among our leading elements. The general was trying to get Task Force Doan to secure our left flank when he was struck down. German groups of tanks and infantry counterattacked our task forces whenever possible. One major engagement just south of the Paderborn airport exemplified the tragic inferiority of our tanks.

One of our columns proceeded up a slightly inclined straight road. A narrow, winding road met the straight road about half a mile from the point where our column entered it. Heavily wooded, rolling hills lay on the right side of the road, and a level, open field was on the left with woods set back about three hundred yards.

The column consisted of a company of M4 Sherman tanks followed by a company of armored infantry in half-tracks. These were followed by several GMC trucks and Jeeps and three M36 tank destroyers.

Suddenly, seven King Tiger tanks appeared along the crest of the forward slope on the left side. As the tanks advanced toward our column, they turned to the right into a column formation and opened fire. We had no time or room to maneuver, and the Shermans could not utilize the advantage of our gyro-stabilizers. Three more King Tigers emerged from the hilly woods road to the right. Our tankers and infantrymen were faced with their worst fear: to be caught in the open by King Tiger tanks at close range, without the ability to maneuver or seek cover.

The seven King Tiger tanks on the left proceeded down the entire length of the column, then turned around and came back. At extremely close range, a hundred yards or less, they raked the column from stem to stern.

Some observers said it was more like a naval engagement than land warfare.

The infantry immediately took cover in the ditches on both sides of the road. One of the Sherman tanks, with a 76mm gun, broke out of the column and took cover behind a small stucco farm building to the left, just off the road in about the middle of the column. As the Tigers came down on their first pass, the Sherman crew swung their 76mm gun 180 degrees to the rear and let go at close range. The Tiger’s thinner armor over the engine compartment was penetrated, and the tank started to burn. The victory for this brave crew was shortlived, however, because the Sherman was knocked out by another Tiger on its return pass.

Although the entire column was trapped, some of the veteran crews stayed cool and utilized their advantages.

One of the crews of an M4 Sherman with a short-barreled 75mm M2 gun was near the middle of the column when the three King Tigers appeared on the right side. The alert tank commander immediately saw two possibilities. First, he knew that the King Tiger had a manual traverse, and it would be extremely difficult and time-consuming for him to swing the turret and elevate the gun to zero in on him. Next, our tank commander knew that an armor-piercing shot from his low-velocity 75mm would just bounce off the King Tiger.

In a split second he told his gunner to load a white phosphorus round. It struck the glacis plate right above the driver’s compartment with a blaze of flames and smoke. Although there was no possibility of penetration, the shock in the tank must have been terrific. The entire faceplate in front of the turret was covered with burning particles of white phosphorus which stuck to the sides of the tank. The smoke engulfed the tank, and the fan in the engine compartment sucked the smoke inside the fighting compartment. The German crew must have thought the tank was on fire and immediately abandoned it. Although the tank suffered little damage, had the crew stayed inside they would have been overcome by the deadly fumes.

The Sherman immediately turned its gun on the second tank in the column and fired white phosphorus, with the same result. Although the ingenious tank commander knocked out two King Tiger tanks (without ever getting a penetration), his tank was then knocked out by another Tiger.

The King Tigers on the left proceeded all the way to the end of the column, where they knocked out one of our M36 tank destroyers, which blocked the rear of the column. The lead tank in the column had already been knocked out and trapped the entire column. As the German tanks returned to the front of the column, they swung their guns around to the other side and picked off the remaining tanks and half-tracks. It was like shooting ducks in a pond. The remaining King Tigers withdrew, leaving our entire column bleeding and burning. [Such was the awesome power of the Tiger against the vastly inferior M4 Sherman.]

When our maintenance crews arrived on the scene, we found a catastrophe. The Germans had knocked out seventeen M4 Sherman tanks, seventeen half-tracks, three GMC trucks, two Jeeps, and one M36 tank destroyer. The column had been annihilated. Fortunately, the personnel casualties had not been as high as the appearance of the wrecked column indicated. The German tanks were so close that the machine guns in the turrets would not depress low enough to reach the men in the ditches. We immediately started dragging back those vehicles that had not been totally burned. The burned-out vehicles were pushed off to one side of the road and abandoned.

I was shocked to see the devastation. It was obvious that our tankers did not have a chance against the Tigers.

Unfortunately, for us, there were no M26 Pershing tanks in this column. I couldn’t help but think that if we’d had them, the outcome would have been far different.

We got the “W” numbers off all the vehicles that had been damaged beyond repair. These numbers plus the map coordinates were all I needed for my combat loss report in order to get replacement vehicles. While the maintenance crews worked, I examined the three King Tigers that had been knocked out. The upper left side of the rear armor on one of them had been penetrated by a 76mm, which had gone directly into the fuel tank and set the tank on fire. The projectile had been fired at such an angle that it went through the fuel tanks into the fighting compartment and struck the inside of the six-inch faceplate. Because it did not have enough energy to penetrate the faceplate, the projectile ricocheted inside the tank and created havoc with the crew.

The tank was completely gutted by fire, so it was impossible to tell which had been worse for the crew. I had always been curious about the actual penetrating power of a panzerfaust and also about the strength of the armor on a King Tiger. I felt it was a good time to test out both. I told Wrayford to give me one of the 100-meter panzerfausts.

I took the panzerfaust and paced off approximately thirty yards directly in front of the tank. I set the sight for thirty yards and aimed directly at a ten-inch-square patch of the forward turret faceplate just to one side of the gun mantlet. I fired, and the panzerfaust struck it dead center. There was a tremendous explosion, and we were showered with small cement particles. (The Germans covered their tanks with a thin layer of cement to protect them from magnetic mines.)

The blast center was about four inches to the right of the aperture where the machine gun came through the faceplate.

Upon closer examination, I could see a distinct penetration about a half inch to three-quarters of an inch in diameter on the outside that went all the way through the faceplate of the turret and opened out about half an inch in diameter on the inside. The hole was complete all the way through the eight-and-a-half-inch turret faceplate. The particles from the blast that showered inside would have killed any of the crew who was still alive.

I examined the two Tigers that had been knocked out by white phosphorus. To save time, the Germans used an unusual technique in welding the six-and-a-half-inch faceplate to the three and a half inches of armor on the upper sponsons. Normally, the edge of the faceplate and the sponson plate would be V grooved approximately three inches deep, then filled with weld metal to the surface. They would have then been welded inside so that the inside bead met the outside bead to produce a solid weld throughout the entire thickness of the plate. Because this welding process would have been extremely time-consuming, the Germans used a substitute method. They notched both plates in a tongue-and-groove castle-head fashion. The notches were trimmed to a tight tolerance and the plates were brought together in a trilock type of construction, similar to one’s hands brought together with the fingers overlapping. In this manner they got a very close fit. Then they welded a zigzag bead into the castle-head sections, which penetrated to only about half an inch. They did this both inside and out to complete the joint.

The point of impact of the white phosphorus shell was similar on both Tigers. It struck the upper-right-hand corner of the front glacis plate about a foot and a half from each edge. The detonation probably deafened the driver, and the blast opened up cracks in the welds. These cracks let even more of the white phosphorus gas into the tank and apparently contributed to the crew’s horror that their tank was on fire. There was no other apparent damage to either of the tanks.

Three companies of the maintenance battalion established a VCP south of Korbach and started collecting the many tanks and other armored vehicles that had been shot up. I headed south about fifty miles to battalion headquarters, which was just north of Marburg. We had bypassed many isolated units, and the Germans constantly crossed our communication lines. Armored vehicles escorted supply columns; our liaison officer to 1st Infantry, on our left flank, had to be escorted there by light tanks. I finally realized that “running the gauntlet” had taken on an entirely new meaning, and I had to exercise every precaution.

Major Arrington was shocked when I told him about the annihilation of the task force south of Paderborn.

Word about General Rose’s death had gotten back and everyone was keyed up. The anti-tank platoon and outer perimeter defenses were beefed up accordingly, and everyone was on constant alert for an encounter with a roaming German unit. Major Arrington told me I would have to take several replacement medium tanks and half-tracks back to C Company. As I went out the door, he hollered, “Cooper, watch your butt and don’t take any unnecessary chances.”

I instructed the tank and half-track crews to be extremely alert, and we proceeded north back to C Company without further incident.

On arrival, it was obvious that C Company had its hands full. Replacement tanks and other vehicles were immediately issued. One of the damaged tanks brought into C Company had its 76mm gun barrel completely missing six feet from the tip. Our first thought was that it had been hit from the side by a lucky German armor-piercing shot. Further examination indicated a long, jagged sliver type of break: that did not look like one caused by a single armor-piercing shot. The fracture appeared to be caused by an internal explosion.

Had the crew been firing a 76mm HE that exploded in the tube, the projectile would have never left the tube; as a result, the tube would not have retracted to its full recoil position, thus opening the block. In this case, the breechblock was open, with the resulting severe blast damage back inside the tank. We concluded that a rare event, perhaps a one-in-a-million chance, had occurred. It was assumed that the American tank crew had just fired a round and the tube had recoiled, opened the breech, and ejected the shell case into the turret. At the same moment, a German 75 HE struck the end of the American gun tube dead center. The 75mm projectile went down the 76mm tube approximately six feet before it exploded and blew off the end of the gun barrel.

The nose of the German projectile proceeded down the barrel, through the open breech, and into the turret, killing two of the crew.

The two bodies still inside the tank had been dismembered by the blast. When two of our tank mechanics got inside the turret to remove the bodies, they were both overcome by the horror of the blood and gore. Sergeant Fox immediately called for volunteers to remove the bodies. This turned out to be one of those instances, often repeated in combat, that separates the men from the boys. There were several big, rough men in the group, the boisterous, heavy-drinking, cussing type who constantly tried to convey the impression of extreme masculinity. You might have expected several of them to step forward, but mere was dead silence. Everybody looked around at everybody else, and nobody moved.

Finally, a high-pitched voice from the edge of the group called out, “I volunteer, Sergeant.”

Out stepped a tall, young soldier who was pale and thin to the point of looking emaciated; I wondered how he had passed the physical exam to get into the army. He was Technician Fifth Grade Smith, a fire control instrument repair mechanic in the headquarters section. He was a hard-working, low-key individual who kept more or less to himself. A skilled watchmaker in civilian life, he had long, delicate fingers. He normally worked in an enclosed, well-heated shop truck; because there was a shortage of skilled instrument mechanics, he had only a few men to help him. Indeed, there were plenty of other men with less precise skills who could have been spared for the time-consuming job of removing the dismembered bodies.

Two other men volunteered to help Smith. Care had to be taken to make sure that the dog tags were kept with the correct body and all the connecting parts were put in the same shelter half. The shelter halves were then closed, placed on the ground, and marked for the graves registration people to pick up. The interior of the tank compartment then had to be thoroughly scrubbed with disinfectant. The artillery mechanics replaced the gun barrel and the electricians repaired all the wiring. Finally the paint crew painted the entire interior with a heavy coat of thick white lead. This covered up all the blemishes and pockmarks inside the tank and at the same time the persistent odor of the drying paint tended to offset the pungent stench left by the mutilated bodies. Some said the odor never completely left the tanks; however, by this time the new crew would have gotten used to the tank.

The new tank crew were always reluctant to accept a tank in which crew members had been killed. We often painted the numbers on the transmission and changed the company and battalion designation of a particular tank. The tank was issued to another company so the new crew never knew its history, and we never told them.

After Smith had done his job, one of the officers asked him why he volunteered to help with the cleanup.

“I figured someone had to do it,” he replied. “I have a younger brother who’s a rifleman in the 1st Infantry Division somewhere forward of us. If he was killed, I would like someone to recover his body so he could be given a decent Christian burial. All soldiers should be entitled to this, at the very least.”

Great courage was not limited to the battlefront but was often found in quiet and unexpected places.

After the debacle south of the Paderborn airport, the remainder of CCA came in and cleaned up the situation.

The remaining elements of Task Force Welborn regrouped and started moving north. Combat Command A was moving in the middle and CCR was coming up on the left. The VII Corps, with the 3d Armored Division leading, was now in position to make the final assault on Paderborn.

Roving bands of Panther and Tiger tanks with infantry were withdrawing from the city and concentrating around the airport and north of there. As our task forces proceeded to the airport, they encountered heavy fire from 88mm dual-purpose guns. Although these guns could be lowered from vertical to horizontal for use as antitank fire, their high profile made them difficult to protect. The Germans would stack sandbags about five feet high in a ring around each gun, but the tops were completely open and they were vulnerable to artillery fire. By rapid deployment of our M7s, we put a few rounds with proximity fuses over each gun emplacement. The downward blast killed the crew and neutralized the gun. With the 88mms neutralized, our tank columns enveloped the airport and proceeded into the city.

The youthful zeal of the cadets who had successfully crewed the Tiger and Panther tanks against our armored columns was contagious and filtered down to the lower ranks of the preteen Hitler Jugend. Some actually took up arms. One eight-year-old Hitler Jugend boy stepped out from a building with a panzerfaust and knocked out one of our Sherman tanks. He was immediately gunned down by the tank commander. The tragedy of war puts no limits on age.

The hangars around the airport had plenty of paved areas and appeared to be a good place to establish a forward VCR As we examined this area, I noticed three German aircraft next to one of the hangars. Because we had been trained to be on constant alert for new types of enemy weapons, I was curious to examine these planes further. Low slung and streamlined, they had a two-man cockpit and twin engines. Slung low under each wing, the engines were long with a tubular exhaust going out the rear; however, they had no propellers.

As I got closer, I realized that they were jets. These were the ME262s, the same type of aircraft that had bombed us so successfully when we were crossing the bridge at Düren. The planes appeared to be in good condition, although there had been a crude attempt to smash the instrument panels. I took brief notes describing the type and condition of the planes and also the map coordinates, and turned in the notes with my combat loss report that night. As far as I know, this was the first ordnance report made of an ME262 captured intact.

Closing the Ruhr (Rose) Pocket

Early on the morning of April 1, an order from VII Corps headquarters changed the division’s disposition slightly. The division was ordered to continue its assault on Paderborn and at the same time dispatch a task force to Lippstadt, about twenty miles to the west.

At 0300, Task Force Kane started toward Lippstadt. The 2d Armored Division had broken out of the bridgehead north of Wesel on the Rhine, about sixty miles to the west, and was proceeding rapidly across the northern flank of the Ruhr toward Lippstadt. The two units were to meet in that vicinity and close the pocket.

Both Task Force Kane of the 3d Armored Division and the 2d Armored Division task force had been driving relentlessly for several days. They had overcome mines and roadblocks and seen their lead tanks constantly knocked out. Their mission had been to plunge rapidly forward, bypassing any resistance and leaving their flanks exposed, hoping that high speed and rapid maneuver would protect them. They did have the advantage of air cover during daylight, weather permitting.

Both columns approached with considerable trepidation. The men were physically and mentally exhausted but at the same time so keyed up that they would fire at anything and ask questions later. They had eaich other’s radio frequencies and constantly tried to call each other; however, the combat radios had limited range, which was reduced further by the rugged terrain. To offset this, each task force commander sent his L5

Cub artillery spotter to try to make radio contact. Although the L5s had to dodge ground fire, they were able to make radio contact at 1520. About ten minutes later, the task forces met at Lippstadt.

The key to logistic support of a rapidly moving armored corps, rarely understood by military historians, was the capability of the lead armored division’s forward maintenance elements to assist the forward elements of the motorized infantry divisions. When VII Corps moved two hundred miles to form the pocket, it required not only the 4,200 vehicles of the 3d Armored Division but also another 10,000 vehicles to transport and support the motorized infantry divisions. A task force with fifty tanks moving thirty to forty miles a day will have between fifteen and twenty tanks drop out during the day just for maintenance and repair. These repairs could include everything from the minor changing of spark plugs and V belts to the actual replacement of a transmission or track suspension element. Tanks, half-tracks, and other armored vehicles are subject to extremely heavy wear and tear in normal, everyday operations.

The maintenance on the four-wheel- and six-wheel-drive vehicles is also extremely high. The demand for tires was unending, because they were constantly damaged by battle debris on the highways plus shrapnel fragments from mortar and artillery explosions. A two-and-a-half-ton GMC truck, moving over a combination of highways and cross-country in six-wheel-drive, would have to have a new engine approximately every ten thousand miles. Although two and half tons was the load rating, they normally carried anywhere from five to eight tons.

The maintenance problems on German tanks and armored vehicles were even greater than on ours. The metal-to-metal connection on their tanks was a high-wear item. With the rubber doughnuts and rubber tracks on our tanks, we could get about five times the track life of a comparable German part. With little or no maintenance support, the German units were at an extreme disadvantage.

The meeting of the 2d and 3d Armored Divisions in Lipp-stadt sealed the trap around the German troops in the Ruhr Pocket. The G2 grossly underestimated the number of prisoners caught in this trap. It was believed that the bulk of the German armies would withdraw and join a new army group in the Harz Mountains. Early estimates said there were 35,000 to 40,000 Germans in the entire Ruhr area. It turned out that the major elements of the German 5th and 15th Armies, including the headquarters of Army Group B under Field Marshal Model, were cut off in this pocket. When Model requested permission to withdraw, Hitler ordered him to stand and fight under penalty of death.

Model, true to the Prussian tradition that a German field marshal never surrendered, was determined not to breach this honor. After being driven to a wooded area, he got out of his Volkswagen, walked a few yards, and shot himself. The disintegrating German units eventually surrendered and yielded about 380,000 prisoners, the largest single group of prisoners ever taken. This site would later be known as the “Rose Pocket,” in honor of our division commander.