116th PANZER IN LAST STAND AGAINST 30TH
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The story of the Ninth Army bridgehead - which on Saturday was a tale of the first amphibious crossing of the Rhine and on Sunday of the eminence of a breakthrough into open country - has become since yesterday the chronicle of a desperate gamble by Field Marshal General Albert Kesselring to prevent !hat breakthrough, by throwing against it the famous 116th Panzer Division, crack armored unit of the German Army.

Deciding, apparently, that of the simultaneous threat to his sagging Western Front - presented by the British Army in the north and the  Ninth Army's bridgehead to the south -  the latter was the most crucial, Germany's man of the eleventh hour has hurried down from the Netherlands one of the few first-class units that the Wehrmacht still possesses.

How much of it and its armor managed to make their way through the seal set upon the bridgehead area by the Allied Air Forces is not knows but its infantry elements have already been identified, and it used tanks to support the counter-attacks that it has been making since yesterday against the bridgehead spear-thrust in the classic German manner when on the defensive.

Bridgehead Deepened

Despite all the counter-attacks the bridgehead has been deepened to a distance of fourteen miles from the Rhine on a ten mile front.  But the resistance was becoming steadily tougher today and may be still tougher tomorrow.  The topography affords the 116th an opportunity to defend the bridge running south from a point somewhat west of the important town of Dorsten on the northern edge of the 30th Division's front.

Why Marshal Kesselring should have decided the Ninth Army's two-division attack was more dangerous then the British Second Army's offensive north of it was the subject of speculation among Ninth Army staff officers.  But his decision has cleared the ring  for the third and perhaps final round of a duel that the Thirtieth Division and the 116th Panzer Division have been fighting since they first met, when Thirtieth closed the pocket behind Aachen last October.

"When we encircled Aachen reminisced Major Ezekiel L Glazier of Palm Beach, Fla., a staff officer of the Thirtieth, "it was the 116th Panzers that were thrown against us. When we jumped off from the Siegfried Line for the Roer River, we met them again. This is the third time they are tangling with us and, you can take my word for it, if they stick it out it will be their last."

If the major's prediction was bold the history of the thirtieth, known to the United States Army as "Old Hickory." would seem to justify it.  In World War I it played a proud part In every major Allied offensive and received more than half the British  decorations awarded to American troops and twelve of the seventy eight Congressional Medals of Honor.  In !his war it proved its mettle at St Lo' where it spearheaded the breakthrough in the Avranches elbow, where it repelled a massive German attack near Mortain, in the smashing of the Siegfried Lines last autumn and in the Belgian Bulge, where it helped to mop the von Rundstedt drive.

Fighting German panzers seems to be the Thirtieth's favorite occupation.  Near Stavelot in the Belgian bulge, it trapped a German armored force and destroyed ninety-two of it tanks. In the bulge battles it all but ruined the First SS Panzer (Adolf Hitler) Division.

Yesterday and today it proceeded methodically with the destruction of the 116th.  Elements of the 116th were first detected in the bridgehead sector Sunday night by a forward battalion of the Thirtieth's 120th Regiment.  Their presence on the Thirtieth's sector could be interpreted as a tribute, but it inevitably spoiled the prospects of an early exploitation of the Ninth Army's bridgehead as a breakthrough.  Had the Thirtieth with supporting armor been able to make a dash for Dorsten Sunday, a breakthrough might have be achieved then and there.

Road to Dorsten Was Blocked

But, as it happened, the road to Dorsten had been blocked by three huge craters, which delayed the dash until Sunday night.  By then word had arrived that the 116th had entered the bridgehead sector.

Since then the 116th has been fighting formidably, as it always does. It planted mines along the roads.  When Its artillery fired It fired in salvoes instead of spaced intervals according to the usual methodical  fashion. It defended Gahlen, most important town on the road to Dorsten and a main road center, by fighting from street to street and from house to house.

It counter-attacked the Thirtieth's 117th Regiment in battalion strength with ten heavy tanks in support.  It gave nothing away.  It demonstrated how far more formidable a force it is than the 180th Volksgrenadier Division, which, when the Rhine was first crossed, constituted the only defense group in this sector.

But despite all the efforts of the 116th, the Thirtieth took Gahlen, linked up with the Seventeenth Airborne Division on its right and cleared the villages of Heisterkant and Weehofen to the south.  Meanwhile, more bridges have been built into the bridgehead and the fate of Germany seems indicated by the fact that the German Rhine, that emotional symbol and formidable military barrier of three days ago, is now a rest area.

By Wes Gallagher, On the Rhine, March 24 (AP), On the Rhine, March 24th (AP)

For the first time the always pessimistic American foot soldier feels tonight that this is the beginning of the last great battle which will bring the the war to a quick end.

Everything the Allies have, including some weapons still on the secret list, has been thrown into this battle to crush the most powerful German fighting force left In the west, and amazing progress is being made by a combination of British and American skill and guts.

Despite the enormity of the stake, German resistance at first was spotty and prisoners were taken in abnormal numbers in the opening hours of the attack.

I followed the Doughboys and Tommies from their secret assembly areas to the Rhine over moonlit roads and watched the attack develop from a frontline regimental command post at the 30th Infantry Division.  Then I crossed the Rhine, and finally flew In a cub spotter plane to watch thousands of parachutists and glider troops drop into Germany.

The most impressive sight of all, as always, was that of long lines of silent infantry walking across the fields and along the roads. The sight always brings a tightness to one's throat.

Among the hundreds of factors contributing to the success of the vast, intricate attack was the icy courage of British commandos who lay within a mile of Wesel while 300 RAF Lancaster's destroyed the town in 1S minutes of night precision bombing, then rushed into the flaming rubble and crushed the garrison of tough German parachute troopers.

Too there was the bravery of American transport pilots who flew their cumbersome ships through a well of flak and dropped grim airborne troops. Some returned in flames. Some did not return.

Yesterday afternoon a curtain of smoke blanketed the entire Ruhr and the Rhine from Düsseldorf to Arnheim. Most of it rose from the flaming buildings of the Ruhr and the impact of thousands of American and British bombs. The rest came from chemicals set off to screen Allied troop dispositions.

Men and machines lay silent until dusk. But with the darkness the Allied front stirred to life.  In the forests there came a rumble of tanks and trucks, and on the roads long convoys sprang forth loaded with every conceivable piece of equipment including thousands of tons of bridging material and huge landing craft on giant trailers.

It seemed impossible that this vast assortment could be untangled and moved to the right place at the right time. But most of it got there.  Near the river dike a barrage from mortars kicked up dust and steel whistled about the veteran regimental command post (the 30th Division's 117th Infantry) in a ruined house.

In the cellar the commanding Colonel Walter M. Johnson of Missoula, Mont. - a short man with a 45 slung on his hip-was just getting his communications in order. It all had to be done by telephone for this division had been moved to the front secretly and could not use the wireless for fear of advertising its presence to the Germans.

"The worst thing about this period", Col. Johnson complained "is that you have to sit and wait. There is nothing you can do, just sit and wait. You can't stop all this stuff from going on, nor can you help it any until the battle starts."

At the colonel's side was Lt. John F McGee of Charleston, S. C. At 22 he is one of the youngest regimental operations officers in the business. He used to be a platoon leader and is thankful for his present job, declaring "it's safer" just as a mortar sell takes the top off of a house next door.

Another operations officer finds the jump-off especially fitting as it is the exact hour he was born 32 years ago. He is Capt. Arne Nielsen, Oakland, Calif.

BARRAGE STARTS

Shortly after dark is a thunder to the north from the big guns. The British have begun their preliminary barrage, a barrage that is to go on for four hours.

The jump off was staggered, with the British northern flank launching its attack at 8 p. m., the southern flank at 9 p. m., and then the Ninth Army's 30th Division to the south at 2 a. m.

From the time those guns opened up the front was a continuous roar, reaching such a crescendo of times that plaster fell from the walls. The concussion of the guns pulled at your clothes.

Just north, of the 30th, British commandos slipped cross the river in the darkness at 10 p. m. and sliced through the river defenses. Then they hid out a scant 1500 yards from the key German strong point in Wesel.

At 10:30 p. m. there was as heavy droning in the air and more than 300 Lancaster's with blockbusters labored overhead with railway schedule precision.  It was their job to find the town in the dark and flatten it without hitting the commandos.

Standing in the backyard I could see the attack. The first bombs hit and for 15 minutes the town flamed and jumped under the explosions. Overhead, almost in a funnel straight into the sky, burst hundreds of flak flashes. These flashes were mute testimony that every bomb was hitting in the target area for they funneled directly up
over the town.

FLYING LOW

Plane after plane thundered by. Some were less than 1,000 feet up. When they finished the town appeared to be just a red glow.  Twenty minutes later in the cellar command post came the first report from the commandos.

"Our only trouble is in taking care of the number of prisoners we are getting," it said.

Outside the command post the infantry marched by, followed by tanks, buffaloes and a hundred other kinds of instruments of war. Occasionally a mortar or tank shell hit nearby, but no one paid any attention.

There is no excitement but an undercurrent of worry always seizes command posts just before a big attack.

"I just hope we get the boats in the water before they spot us," says Operations Officers Maj. Julius W. Singleton of Morgantown, W. Va.

Dozens of young officers came in and out of the command post with a thousand assignments, demonstrating the tremendous complications of modern war and particularly of this attack.

One of these is Lt. Henry L. Hatcherman, Providence, R. I. His job is to get three bulldozers down to the river. If alligators can't climb the dike, he is to rip it down with his bulldozers, then hide them as much as possible. Later he is to load then on three Navy landing craft and take them to the other side where they will go to work building landing ways for other equipment.

CRANES BREAK

Down on the river, cranes are trying to lift huge U. S. Navy boats off their trailers. The cranes break under the strain and the cumbersome vessels are manhandled off into the water.  Later, infantry waves carried other 1,000-pound assault boats down to the river on their backs so that the first waves could climb aboard and land on the other side fresh.  The river was covered with smoke and you could scarcely see you- hand before your face. To mark the navigation lanes across the river tracers were being fired in lanes.

In other places big flashlights were tied in bundles on the east bank and used to guide later arrivals. Motorboat hobbyists, who were recruited from all over the Army, were transferred weeks ago to handle the storm craft with their outboard motors. One of these eras Pfc. James L. Killings of Longview, Texas.

"I had a hell of a time on my trip", SSgt William M. Killinqsworth said as he trudged up the bank guarding some German prisoners brought back by returning boats. "My motor conked out in midstream and I had two wounded men on board, including the assistant operator. I still don't know how I got if started again and got to shore."

The Germans tried to mortar the boats as they crossed the river but casualties were surprisingly light for the magnitude of the operations. All up and down the river for miles the scene at. this beachhead was repeated.

Back at command posts, lines on the maps ranged deeper and deeper into the Reich as battalion after battalion landed and pushed inland.  In this sector they encountered few mines. Apparently the Germans had not had time to plant them.

NAZIS QUIT EARLY

Many German soldiers gave up after only a brief struggle. More than 250 were lying face downward just behind the dike under guards. They already had been ferried back across the river. Many were young and sullen but the fight was all gone out of them.

The Navy boats, alligators and ducks made repeated trigs across !he river. But the storm boats which carried the first waves were left scattered on the opposite shore, their purpose achieved.

Many motor boat operators said long practice and close study of sand table relief maps saved their lives as they got lost in the smoke and did not know where they were on the river.

With the coming of daylight Germans had been pushed back out of small arms range of the river in some sectors. 

When this was accomplished the stream of traffic changed to heavy bridging equipment. Thousands of engineers forced their way to the sloping bank with hundreds of pieces of gear.

They had the biggest short term engineering job of the war, the building of enough bridges across one of the largest rivers in Europe to move three full armies.

The task is comparable to building enough bridges across the Hudson to move the entire Bronx population and its household equipment in a few days.

The engineers have to work under fire for days in one of the war's roughest tasks. One engineer was seen in a truck going upstream with an arm in a sling. When asked what he could do thus injured, he raised the other hand and said, "I still have another arm left". "We are going to break all records", declared Lieut. Walter Dannenberg, Cambridge, Mass., who had a surveyors' pole in hand.

As the morning advanced there came a new crisis in the battle raging along the entire front under a canopy of Allied planes. That was the task of dropping airborne troops.

SHALLOTTE PILOT

To watch it one of the best seats was in a cub plane piloted by Capt. O'dell Williamson of Shallotte, N. C., 30th Division Artillery.

A slight wind had come up, blowing the smoke away from the river and leaving the left bank of the Rhine in clear view. The cub had to fly high to keep out of the way of some 1,500 transport craft dropping airborne troops from 10 a. m. to 1 p. m.

The drop was one of the most complicated feats of arms thus far in the war. It was being made in daylight in one of the heaviest flak belts in Europe by slow transports towing gliders--sitting targets for ground gunners.

To meet this threat of the German antiaircraft defense, British gunners at 9 o'clock fired shells which burst in the air at all known German flak positions deeper in the battle zone. That assault continued for half an hour. Then it had to stop so that the drop areas would not be covered with smoke and dust.

No Allied guns could fire in or near the area during the drop because of the danger of hitting Allied planes or troops.

Thus the drop, at the peak of the battle, came in a lull in the battle's roar.

Some flak positions may have been knocked out, but there were plenty left as two streams of C-47s with their tense chutists and glider men crossed the river to the north, made the drop, and then swung out to the south.

PLANES ON FIRE

The cub flew high above the scene at the point where the C-47s came out. We could see the planes going straight into the flak as though craft and crews were armor-plated. Smoke obscured the drop, but not the planes.

Some exploded in flight. Others fell at the river's edge.

Two at once were seen flaming almost side by side as they streaked for the Rhine.

"Look", shouted Williamson pointing "Look at those poor devils. You've got to hand it to those C-47 pilots, just sitting there and taking it."

Williamson whipped his cub about and cut in close to the two flying coffins. There was nothing to do but just sit there and watch helplessly. One plane had its motor on fire and the pilot was trading altitude grudgingly against time in an effort to make a crash landing in an open field.

The other was burning from the wings. Suddenly parachutes -- two of them -- billowed out. The pilot apparently stayed with his plane to give the crewmen a chance to bail out. Suddenly the plane dived toward the ground. But before if hit it exploded with a smoky, reddish glare.

The first pilot must have seen his companion go down, but he stayed with his plane. He skimmed a row of trees and crash-landed in the field.  For a moment if looked as if he was safe.  But the crash apparently broke open the gas tanks. The entire plane was engulfed in a red glare. No one was seen to get out.

While this way going on a steam of transports plunged across the Rhine like a relentless ride.

The big picture of war went on but some of the little actors were gone.

WITH 30th INF. DIV. - It was a brisk before-breakfast work-out for the 117th's Regt.'s Bn. when it took Oberembt.  Jumping off at 4:55 AM the battalion had moved into town and troops were eating breakfast by 7:30 AM, according to Lt. Tom Stanley, of Marion, S. C.  Just prior to the jump-off B and C companies were waiting for tanks of the supporting 743rd Tank Bn.  It was dark.  They heard tanks coming from their rear and men went out to wave them down. However, the tanks ware Mark V's.

"Move over," one Jerry commander said to an open mouthed C Co. dough. Then the Jerries quit talking and started shooting,

"I could have reached out and touched one of the tanks," said Lt. Charles B. Foster, of Rushville, Ind., "when he swung that telephone pole (88 mm gun) toward us."

The German armor fighting to get out of a trap so surprised the Old Hickorymen men it ran through practically all o£ the battalion before the 893rd TDs could apprehend it. They knocked out two of the tanks arid half-tracks

While the 823rd got the tanks,  "C" platoon, led by "SSgt LeRoy Sumner, of Enorce, S.C., got 15 Jerry infantrymen.