division launched one of the first attacks on the Siegfried Line the next morning. The unit’s history recorded, “The plan was simple; the first waves of infantry, supported by direct tank-destroyer fire, were to secure high ground just beyond the dragon’s teeth. Immediately following this part of the operation, men of the 23d Armored Engineer Battalion would move forward and breach the obstacle line with high explosive charges. The tanks, which were usually considered point of the ‘Spearhead’ [the division’s codename], would then go on into Germany behind the ‘Queen of Battles’ and the engineers.”
Combat Command A’s Task Force Doan tackled a cluster of pillboxes behind dragon’s teeth northwest of Schmidthof. Mortar fire disrupted the first wave, but the doughs rallied and pressed on. Even pillboxes that had taken direct hits from the 3-inch guns on the supporting M10s continued to spew death. The tanks were unable to advance until the discovery of a secondary road where German farmers had filled in the dragon’s teeth with dirt so they could cross the line to their fields. The M4s pushed forward. Assault guns and German soldiers with panzerfausts engaged the Shermans, and at one point, Col Leander Doan could see seven of his M4s burning among the pillboxes. Progress was slow and demanded a high price in blood, but CCA bashed a path through the first band of defenses.102 Third Platoon, B/703d Tank Destroyer Battalion, was probably the first TD unit to penetrate the Siegfried Line.103
By 15 September, the 3d Armored Division had punched all the way through both bands of the West Wall in its sector. The tankers and supporting TD crews were only the first to discover that the villages on the far side provided superb defensive positions, too. A half-dozen panzers ambushed Task Force Lovelady and destroyed seven tanks and one of the supporting TDs. The command pulled back to the fortifications, and the division’s forward progress all but ended. The worn out 3d Armored Division had only 25 percent of its authorized tank strength fit for combat.
Nonetheless, the advance had enabled the 1st Infantry Division on the left to take high ground at Eilendorf and encircle Aachen on three sides. Almost defenseless, Aachen was ripe for the taking, but the overextended 1st Division lacked the resources to snatch it. On the right, the 9th Infantry Division on 16 September advanced through the West Wall to within seven miles of the Roer River. But German reinforcements were arriving in large numbers to plug the gap. Confronted by fresh German reserves, Collins on 17 September ordered his exhausted corps to consolidate its positions. Only the 9th Infantry Division would continue to press the attack on the right, plunging into the forbidding gloom of the Hurtgen Forest.104
Far to the south, Seventh Army’s 636th Tank Destroyer Battalion recon men reached the Moselle River on 20 September and scouted crossings for the 36th Infantry Division. The 141st RCT crossed the river the next day, but the race stopped rather suddenly. Over the next several days, recon teams reported strong enemy positions in every direction. Resistance became fiercer, artillery barrages heavier, and minefields thicker. Recon had to turn to foot patrols.105
Likewise, the recon men from the 601st Tank Destroyer Battalion ran into determined resistance at Faucogney. “From there on,” recorded the battalion’s informal history, “it was slow, tough going.”106
The armored spearheads could run no longer. The infantry—that Queen of Battles—and its supporting tanks and TDs again took center stage.
The officially recognized U.S. Army campaigns in northern and southern France, characterized by rapid movement and isolated pockets of German defense, ended on 14 September 1944; on 15 September, the Rhineland Campaign began, a slugfest that was to drag on by official count until 21 March of the next year. Yet there was one more clash of charging armor left to be fought in France.
The Tank Battles of Lorraine
Eisenhower conferred with Montgomery and Bradley from 9 to 11 September to discuss operations in light of the tight logistic situation. SHAEF continued to underscore that the primary Allied effort would be in the north, in the direction of the Ruhr, as urged by Monty. But on 13 September, Eisenhower gave Patton the inch the fiery general needed to take a mile. Patton gained leave to push only far enough to establish “adequate bridgeheads” beyond the Moselle River. A day later, Patton was across the river in strength. He ordered his corps commanders to press on to the Rhine.107
On Third Army’s right, the French 2d Armored Division pierced the German defenses west of the Moselle River and penetrated the German Nineteenth Army’s rear area. Further north, the American 4th Armored Division formed the edge of a wedge driving into a gap between the German Nineteenth and First armies. German commanders had wanted to strike a blow against the U.S. Seventh Army advancing from the south, but this new peril appeared even graver.
Hitler ordered a counterattack, and on 17 September the Fifth Panzer Army received instructions to seal the gap in the German front by attacking the southern flank of the Third Army columns advancing toward Metz. To the rear, German commanders struggled to find the resources to construct a forward defensive line before the Vosges Mountains, and success against the U.S. Third Army offered the only hope of gaining enough time. Fifth Panzer Army set taking control of the town of Luneville as its objective. It had available badly understrength elements of the 15th Panzergrenadier and 21st Panzer divisions and three panzer brigades either present or on the way. The 11th Panzer Division, having completed its rear-guard action against Seventh Army, was promised by 25 September.108
The panzer brigades—the 111th, 112th, and 113th—had recently been formed for service on the Eastern Front but were committed to the west instead. They consisted of two panzer battalions (forty-five each of Marks IV and V), two panzergrenadier battalions, and other assorted elements. They lacked artillery and salvage capabilities, and the men had never even met the officers who took command when the units began detraining in France. The 112th Panzer Brigade, moreover, had been mauled by air strikes and lost roughly sixty tanks while attacking the French 2d Armored Division on 13 September.109
The closely linked series of actions that followed constituted by some measures the largest tank battle to take place on the Western Front.
On 18 September, seventeen tanks and the panzergrenadiers of the 111th Panzer Brigade advanced northward toward Luneville. Men of the 42d Cavalry Squadron and CCR/4th Armored Division held most of the town but were still battling elements of the 15th Panzergrenadier Division in the streets. The panzers swept the cavalry aside and, attacking in concert with the panzergrenadiers already in Luneville, pushed the Americans back into the north part of the city.110
Company B/704th Tank Destroyer Battalion, was bivouacked on high ground northwest of the city. Third Platoon rolled into Luneville under heavy artillery fire to aid the defenders. During fighting that lasted until well after dark, the M10s claimed three Panther kills.111
Combat Command A/4th Armored Division rushed a task force to the scene to help out.112 Second Lieutenant Richard Buss and 2d Platoon, C/704th Tank Destroyer Battalion, accompanied elements of the 37th Armored Regiment on the rescue mission. A sergeant led Buss’s destroyers toward the south part of town, to a spot where the buildings thinned out and a railroad embankment was visible across a field. A large deserted factory loomed over the scene. Buss noticed that there were no civilians to be seen on the streets. Buss related later:
After a while, a Lieutenant Walle arrived back from the embankment and announced that he had spotted two Panthers hidden in some trees across the field on the other side. We both took off at a run and peered over the rails. There they were! Two beauties at about three hundred yards range! The enemy had been so considerate as to place one sideways to our position. The other was positioned facing us at a three-quarters angle. With hand signals, I called Sergeant Romek’s tank up and had him dismount and join us on the embankment. I pointed out the targets. He ran back and mounted. His tank trundled up and laid its tube across the railroad tracks. Romek briefed the gunner, Corporal Mazolla, and the tube traversed onto the target.
