On March 6, 1945, the leading division of the American VII Corps reached the city of Cologne. Now the Allies were lining the Rhine between Cologne and Nijmegen, more than 100 miles downstream, where the river, if the stream slows down, widens to reach a breadth as great as 250 or 300 yards, and all the bridges had been destroyed. Forcing the Rhine north of the Ruhr, according to Montgomery’s formula, would result in a delay of two weeks and necessitate considerable reinforcements for the 21st Army Group. And here can be seen Eisenhower’s farsightedness in keeping to his plan of operations of December 31, 1944: to defeat the enemy west of the Rhine. For, if he had kept Bradley marking time then. Hitler could have detached the forces necessary to check Montgomery on the Rhine below Cologne.
This did not happen, for, on March 6, Army Group "B” was fighting the American 1st Army on its right and the 3rd on its centre. Its 5th Panzerarmee (Colonel-General Harpe) was now well and truly outflanked and overrun on both wings. According to the original plan, the American 1st Army was to provide the left flank of Operation "Grenade”. With this in view. General Bradley had increased its size to three corps (14 divisions). But it was not foreseen that the 3rd Army would take part in the attack and it was only by a rather surreptitious move that, during the second week of January, Patton had pushed his forces as far as the Moselle in Luxembourg, the Sure, and the Our near the Westwall, covering himself at S. H.A. E.F. by claiming that his moves were "offensive defence”, when his aggression had no other aim but that of reaching the Rhine at Koblenz.
The defeat of the German 15th Army opened a breach in Field-Marshal Model’s line which General Hodges and his 1st Army did not delay in exploiting. Having occupied Cologne, VII Corps set off for Bonn on March 7. Ill Corps (Major-General J. Millikin), which was advancing on the right of VII Corps, had orders to take the crossings over the Ahr. This task was entrusted to the 9th Armoured Division (Major-General John W. Leonard).
Towards the end of the morning of March 7, Brigadier-General William M.
Hoge, leading Combat Command "B” of the 9th Armoured Division, was informed that the Ludendorff Bridge near Remagen was still intact. He decided not to follow his orders (which had specified Sinzig as his target) to the letter and resolved there and then to chance his luck and seize the bridge. A little before 1600 hours, 2nd Lieutenant Karl Timmermann ventured on to the bridge, followed by the Burrows section. Seeing them, the German guard tried to set off the demolition charges, but in vain. Under American fire. Sergeant Faust, another hero of this episode, then lit the fuse. But the effect of the explosion was insignificant, and, a few minutes later. Sergeant Alex Drabik was the first American fighting man to step on the right bank of the Rhine. Behind him. Lieutenant Hugh B. Mott, a combat engineer, and three sappers tore the charges from the girders and threw the explosives into the river.
"The enemy had reached Kreuzberg and as far as a bridge near Remagen which, it appears, was encumbered with fugitives. They crossed the bridge and succeeded in forming a bridgehead on the eastern bank of the river. Counterattack early this morning. The 11th Panzer Division will be brought from Bonn. But petrol is in short supply.”
The O. K.W. war diary records this national catastrophe in these unemotional words. Therefore it gives no account of Hitler’s rage, which was terrible. Major Scheler and three others were declared responsible, on Hitler’s orders, for the success of the Allied surprise attack, court-martialled, and shot.
Twenty-four hours after this surprise, there were already 8,000 Americans in the bridgehead. By March 17, four divisions (9th, 78th, 99th, and 9th Armoured) were dug in. On the same day the bridge collapsed. Hitler had concentrated the fire of a battery of 17-cm guns on it, as well as ordering aircraft and V-2 attacks, and even attempts by Kriegsmarine human torpedoes and frogmen. But, protected by booms and nets, 1st Army engineers had already built another bridge and both banks of the Rhine were bristling with anti-aircraft guns.
Having transferred III Corps (three divisions) to the 1st Army, Patton remained in command of VIII, XII, and XX Corps, which had 12 divisions, three of which were armoured. The crossing of the Our and the Sure, on the Saint Vith-Echter-nach line, was no little matter because
A The nemesis of Germany’s civilian bombing campaigns early in the war: the avenging angel of the British and American strategic bombing forces.
A A The last stand. . . A ¦ ¦ ¦ and the last Heil.
The rivers were in flood. The forcing of Westwall was also very tough. In XII Corps there was one division which had to reduce 120 concrete casemates. This it did with self-propelled 155-mm guns, pounding the embrasures from a range of only 300 yards.
In spite of everything, by the end of February VIII and XII Corps were on the Kyll, having advanced about 20 miles into German territory. XX Corps had taken Saarburg and advanced as far as the apex of the triangle formed by the Mosel and the Saar at their confluence a little above Trier. Up till then the German 7th Army (General Brandenberger), which faced Patton, had defended itself tenaciously, but this very tenacity explains why, on March 1, having exhausted its supplies, it literally collapsed. On that day, wrote Patton:
"At 14.15, Walker [commander of XX Corps] called up to say the 10th Armoured Division was in Trier and had captured a bridge over the Moselle intact. The capture of this bridge was due to the heroic act of Lieutenant Colonel J. J. Richardson, deceased. He was riding in the leading vehicle of his battalion of armoured infantry when he saw the wires leading to the demolition charges at the far end of the bridge. Jumping out of the vehicle, he raced across the bridge under heavy fire and cut the wires. The acid test of battle brings out the pure metal.”
On March 3, the forcing of the Kyll at Kyllburg by the 5th Division, under Major-General S. LeRoy Irwin, enabled Major-General Manton Eddy, commanding XII Corps, to detach his 4th Division. Under the command of Major-General Hugh J. Gaffey, this division made a raid of mad audacity, covering 26 miles on March 4 alone and reaching Daun in the evenin. g. Two days later, it reached the Rhine above Koblenz. On its left, the 11th Armoured Division (Major-General Holmes E. Dager), advancing ahead of VII Corps, established first contact with the American 1st Army on March 11, near Brohl.
On Marchs, the O. K.W. war diary noted that LIII Corps had been steamrollered and that any co-ordinated conduct of operations was henceforth impossible. The truth of this is illustrated by the capture of General von Rothkirch und Panthen, in command of LIII Corps. Bradley recounts the story thus:
"So rapid was the dissolution that even the senior German commanders lost
Touch with their crumbling front. One day a German corps commander drove into a field of listless soldiers and asked why they were not fighting the Allies. Not until an American MP clasped him on the shoulder and invited him to join the throng, did the general learn that he had stumbled into a PW concentration.” Altogether, the second phase of the battle for the Rhineland, called Operation "Lumberjack”, had brought the 12th Army Group 51,000 prisoners. It had also given it the priceless bridgehead at Remagen, which the German 15th Army was unable to destroy, since the four Panzer divisions which Model had given
A A German soldier lies dead on the bank of the Rhine, the Third Reieh's "unerossoble” natural defenee in the ll'csC
The energetic Lieutenant-General Bayer-lein for this purpose did not total more than 5,000 men, 60 tanks, and 30 guns. On the other side of the battlefield, the Americans spread out in all directions. So great and thorough was their push that, on March 22, they were on the right bank of the Rhine in a bridgehead 25 miles long and ten miles deep.
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