the next objective.”
During the three-day operation described, the TDs killed seven panzers, two SP guns, six AT guns, and two halftracks.
The AAR of the 656th Tank Destroyer Battalion, a newly arrived outfit operating with both the 9th Armored and 78th Infantry divisions, noted, “Resistance, mostly from the German 3d Parachute Division, was determined…. Tactics employed were those of tanks rather than tank destroyers. The destroyers followed behind the assaulting wave of infantry. When an obstacle, an enemy machine gun or strongpoint, interfered with the infantry advance, the destroyers [opened fire]. Upon approaching a town, it was customary for the supporting destroyers to fire a preparation. First, destroyers fired on the upper stories of buildings, forcing the enemy into the cellars. The fire was shifted to lower floors and cellars.”
The 3d Armored Division broke out of the Roer bridgehead on 26 February. The date was another fateful one for the Tank Destroyer Force, because the tankers were using several of the new M26 Pershings in combat for the first time.9 The Pershing was more heavily armored than the Sherman and carried the same 90mm gun as the M36 in a fully protected turret. One of the Pershings during the day destroyed two Tigers and a Mark IV at a thousand yards. The tank destroyer once again had no edge in killing power over the American tank.
Bradley launched Operation Lumberjack—a massive pincer operation with First Army attacking east and southeast and Third Army northeast—on 3 March while Ninth Army was still grinding through stubborn German resistance on the Roer plain. Bradley later crowed, “Lumberjack was very nearly flawless, the kind of campaign generals dream about but seldom see. All five corps of both armies advanced according to plan, with dazzling speed and elan. The German armies opposing us were utterly routed, the men falling back in confusion and disarray, leaving a trail of weapons and equipment behind.”10
By 5 March, Ninth Army had cleared the west side of the Rhine from Dusseldorf to Mors, First Army troops had entered Cologne, and Third Army had reached the Rhine near Koblenz.11
On 7 March—the same day that the First and Third armies’ spearheads closed the pincer jaws—a 9th Armored Division task force from First Army captured the only standing bridge across the Rhine that the Allies would take, the Ludendorff railroad bridge at Remagen. The M18s from C/656th Tank Destroyer Battalion formed part of the column that reached Remagen at 0330 hours. Company CO Capt Richard Tuggle was ordered to push his destroyers across the Rhine to support the 14th Tank Battalion. The TDs rolled through the streets of Remagen, following the Shermans under constant artillery fire. The first TD, commanded by Sgt John Jaroscak, had made it two-thirds of the way across the bridge when a track slipped from the planking laid across the railroad tracks. The crew and engineers worked furiously to get the destroyer, which had blocked the entire U.S. Army advance across the Rhine, under way. By 0600 hours, Jaroscak was on the east bank of the river.12
When Hodges called Bradley with the news of the bridge’s capture, Bradley responded, “Hot dog, Courtney, this will bust him wide open…. Shove everything you can across it.”
Eisenhower’s operations chief, MajGen Harold “Pink” Bull happened to be at Bradley’s HQ and was less enthusiastic because the crossing did not conform to the plan. “What in the hell do you want us to do,” asked an irritated Bradley, “pull back and blow it up?”13
Although still committed to making the main effort in the north, Eisenhower authorized Bradley to push five divisions into the bridgehead.14 The North Africa veterans from the 899th Tank Destroyer Battalion —the first TDs ashore at Normandy—crossed the Rhine the next day.
Because TD battalion commanders had little or no control over their widely scattered outfits, they were available for other duties—such as running a task force. On 14 March, the Third Army’s 90th Infantry Division conducted an assault crossing of the Moselle River near Hatzenport. The following evening, LtCol Frank Spiess— commanding the 773d Tank Destroyer Battalion—was placed in charge of TF Spiess. The command consisted of recon and headquarters companies and Company C from the 773d; Company D of the 712th Tank Battalion; and the 90th Reconnaissance Troop. The task force set off on 16 March, its initial mission to screen the division’s southern flank and to clear the enemy all the way to the Rhine at Boppard. By 1430 hours, Spiess had “washed his hands” in the Rhine River per orders from the assistant division commander.
The task force, however, encountered dug-in troops from the 6th SS Mountain Division south of Boppard. A bitter fight ensued, and the task force lost two men killed, one officer and six enlisted men wounded, and two M10s knocked out before it evicted the Germans. At 0900 on 17 March, the M10s of 3d Platoon entered Boppard without much resistance. The gunners then destroyed three vehicles on the far side of the Rhine to kill time while waiting for relief by the 2d Cavalry Group.
On 20 March, Spiess was ordered to lead the division advance on Mainz, for which Company A’s TDs had replaced those of Company C. Although the troops were exhausted from the fast movement so far and the lack of sleep, they pushed ahead with lightning speed. By 1200 they had cleared sixteen towns, three minefields, and two roadblocks, and were only three miles from the city limits.
Here they encountered dug-in infantry supported by AT and flak guns and heavy mortar fire. Two M10s were struck and ground to a halt. Spiess personally flushed a German soldier holding a panzerfaust from cover beside the road. Spiess called in a time-on-target (TOT) artillery strike, and the infantry tried to clear the roadblock. They were driven back, and only another artillery preparation enabled them to bull though.
Task Force Spiess was able to rest the next day guarding the flank while three infantry regiments cleared Mainz.15
Charging with the Cavalry
Captain Charles Seitz, commanding Company A of the 808th Tank Destroyer Battalion, described how tank destroyers operated with the fast-moving armored cavalry during operations to clear the west bank of the Rhine River during late March. One M36 platoon worked with each squadron. Seitz reported, “The cavalry’s mission was to exploit the Moselle bridgehead in the north of the Moselle triangle and push as quickly as possible to the Rhine and then sweep to the south along the Rhine as fast as possible. This meant rapid movement, so we found it necessary to place the M36s in the support section of the cavalry teams’ columns, following a reconnaissance troop and a platoon of light tanks. Each team moved along a different route to the objective. The lighter vehicles could move as fast as the situation allowed without being held back by the slower M36s [the M18 could keep up!]. Then, if something were hit, the destroyer would have time to move up to it and size it up.
“In this type of movement, good liaison was important. This was achieved in one of two ways depending on the situation. One was that the platoon leader rode behind the team commander, and the other was that the team commander had a radio vehicle accompany the platoon leader [the price of having incompatible radio gear].
“When the cavalry did find opposition—chiefly in towns—the destroyers moved into position to supply assault fire. In one instance, the combination of the cavalry’s speed and the assault fire of the destroyers persuaded approximately seven hundred fifty Germans in the Bingen area to give up to our much smaller force.”16
Seventh Army, meanwhile, on 15 March launched Operation Undertone, which aimed at retaking the ground lost during Nordwind and clearing the southern Saar. On 16 March 1945, the men of the 776th Tank Destroyer Battalion were attached to the 63d Infantry Division, which was trying to crack the Siegfried Line defenses near Ensheim, just south of Saarbrucken. Advances in the north might be unfolding with accelerating speed, but here the Germans still fought tenaciously.
In the early dawn hours, company and platoon leaders conducted a foot reconnaissance under small-arms and mortar fire to survey possible firing positions. They then met with infantry commanders to coordinate team play. That night, as the men tried to get some rest in the assembly area, they were subjected to artillery and rocket fire.
The next day at 0500 hours, the M36s of Companies A and C moved forward over sloped terrain under
