TERRIFIC ARTILLERY BARRAGE
SOFTENED RHINE
Page 11

All over the flat stretch of land running back of the high ground east of the Rhine was evidence of the terrific artillery bombardment our gunners had thrown into the area in preparation for our crossing.

Over the whole area hung a mixture of smoke and dust rising from dirt road, for, although the recant dry weather has made the ground excellent for the operation of armor and other vehicles, at the same times it has turned the atmosphere in the battle area into a semblance of those dust-ridden Carolina maneuvers.

At a farmhouse captured only a few hours before, the task force '"Hunt", named for its commander, Lieut. Col. Richard I. Hunt of Bethesda, was in the process of forming up for a further push toward interior objectives within the Reich.

White Flags in Evidence

The force, composed of an infantry battalion commanded by Lieut. Cal. James W. Cantey, of Columbia, N. C.; a light tank battalion commanded by Colonel Hunt and other elements was to take off shortly to pursue its initial success in driving the Germans beck and chopping up elements encountered in front of it,

Along the dust-laden road stretching toward the high ground a mile or so away doughboys of the 120th Infantry already were mounting their tanks for a combined operation.

There still were a few civilians, mostly women, children and old men grouped in the doorway of the farmhouse, over which hung the white flag which all German families now throw out to meet the advancing Americans.

The afternoon was almost hot, for the spring weather has dried up the ground which in places is already baked hard.

Dogs Run Beside Tanks

Through the small towns in their path, groups of German civilians stood, apathetic to the show of American strength,, but at the same time evidencing friendliness, and apparently wondering how the conquerors would treat them. A couple of German dogs ran noisily beside the tanks for a few moments, then jumped away, not sure what was happening.

Some fifteen minutes later, as the lead tanks reached the first stretch of an uphill grade, the column stopped in its tracks. Up ahead we could hear the sounds of the rapid exchange of small-arms fire.

A hot March sun still blazed in the sky above as we sat and waited for the next move. Somehow that moment, the war seemed far away, as cattle grazed quietly in fields on
both sides of us, a few civilians wandered about the usual task of spring planting and the only sounds of battle were distant ones.

They Sweat It a Out

Then, the scene changed. There was the quick, high-velocity whine of an incoming shell and almost immediately an explosion a hundred yards to our right. Then came a series of rounds in quick succession, slamming into the fields on both sides of the road.

An enemy battery evidently was near by for we could hear the sound of a shell leaving the gun and then the almost instantaneous explosion.

Our forces had been held up for the better part of a half hour when the signal came to move again, just as Thunderbolts went into action a mile or so ahead to strafe and bomb Jerry positions. As the silver P-47's screamed down thousands of feet in a power dive, we were glad they bore the blue star, not the black swastika, and even from a distance the ground under us shook as the bombs exploded.

Guns Moved Recently

From evidence gathered from later trend of the battle, it was apparent that guns had been moved in shortly before we arrived, or even as the first tanks were on their ways up the hill, for there was none of the usual camouflage, no sign of prepared positions. In a ditch on one side lay the bloody body of a German gunner, felled as he attempted to man his gun.

At a T-shaped intersection 500 or 600 yards ahead a Heine half-tracked vehicle that had attempted to stop the push was burning fiercely. Even from a distance there was an acrid smell of burning bodies, and as we drew up to it we could see a driver and gunner killed by a direct hit by one of our tanks,

In the semi-darkness, infantry already was deploying out right and left to cover the flanks preparatory to moving on through the woods or setting up a perimeter defense for the night.

Krauts Caught By Surprise

Suddenly there was the sharp chatter of a German 'burp gun' down the road to the right. Although it may have been 50 yards away, it sounded next to us as its spray of lead sent twigs and branches flying overhead and we flattened to the ground. For a few minutes a firefight blazed as the doughboys tangled with the Krauts,

Up at the main intersection, north of the left-hand road, Lieutenant Colonel Hunt and the tankers were attempting to break through the last strip of forest to open ground beyond. As we came up there was the sound of heavy guns going into action, then the sharp rattle of machine guns and small arms.

Things were getting stiffer, but it was evident the Krauts had been taken by surprise, for at the intersection were three mobile 150-mm guns left behind by the enemy,
who had retreated so fast he was unable to save these valuable pieces of equipment.

Arrogant Captain Captured

A few moments later, one of the more valuable prizes of war came down the road guarded by doughboys - a captain in command of a battalion of the 116th Panzer Division.  Apparently out on a reconnaissance preparatory to moving his unit into a position against us, the Nazi was the ''arrogant type", and would speak only after he saw the amount of supporting men and material we were employing.

A crowd of German prisoners was moving off down the road through the column of our tanks when the screaming, high-pitched whine of German rocket guns broke over the other sounds of battle. It sent us diving to the dirt again, but with a sigh of relief as the explosive tore through the skies to explode well behind us. Then the column began to move forward slowly again.

Near 7 o'clock. a few more prisoners straggled in, this time a mixture of both the division against us, varying from nondescript Yolkssturm troops to arrogant Nazi armored corpsmen. They were a general cross-section of what we seem to be up against in this bridgehead across the Rhine.

Next Vehicle Explodes

Half an hour later, the tanks were ordered buttoned up for the night and the infantry commanders instructed company and platoon leaders to deploy men throughout the area, for a perimeter defense against counterattacks. As we walked back through the still-blazing forest, there was a terrific explosion back at the corner, where a German tracked vehicle had been hit, and we could see a shower of sparks, metal, ammunition and pieces of Krauts showering through the air as the vehicle exploded.

By noon, the companies moving forward to drive the enemy from the woods had all reached their objectives, and reported the enemy falling back to positions in the open ground beyond.  As we left, the armor again was on the move up, and already elements had reached the edge of the wooded area.

Seen about the area were:

CAPT. CHARLES H. BROWN, 311 East Thirty-first street.

LIEUT. JOHN V: RICKLE, 2920 Riggs avenue.

TECH/5 EARL BROOKS, 3801-1/2 Woodbine avenue.

LIEUT. COL. JOSEPH E. REYNOLDS, Hopkinsville, Ky.

MAJOR EZEKIEL GLAZIER, Palm Beach, Fla,

PFC NEVIN CRONISE, Hagerstown.

LIEUT. GEORGE W. TERRY, Elmhurst, L, I.

LIEUT. RAY E. ELVAN, Clifton, N. J.

LIEUT. JOE SULTAN, Youngstown, Ohio.

When this correspondent entered Magdeburg this afternoon the city had already bean cleared of active resisters though prisoners were' still being brought in and shells from the German artillery on the other side of the Elbe were coming in.

The Reichsbank, a square brown. stucco building of modernistic architecture was being guarded by men of the 117th Regt and so was a warehouse stocked with German champagne.  This was not only to protect champagne from the men or, better say, the men from the champagne, but the champagne from the Germans who have shown themselves ready looters of such property on occasion.

Of Magdeburg's 310,000 inhabitants 200,000 still remain. They have stayed through bombings and artillery fire,  which have laid one third of the city flat and seriously damaged at least another third.

CIVILIANS CALLOUS

It must be admitted that these German civilians have strong nerves. According to unconfirmed reports, 25,000 of the city's inhabitants are dead or missing since yesterday's 3 1/2 hour bombing.

A German medical officer complained today that the American troops were not rescuing thousands whom he said, must be suffocating under piles of new rubble created by that attack. Yet Lt. Col. Ben T. Ammons of Jackson, Term., commander of the Second Battalion of the 117th said that the citizens had to be shooed off the streets today, while the fighting was in progress so curious were they to see it.

According to Lt. Col. Robert B. Frankland of Jackson, Tenn., commander of the First Battalion, it had been a strange sort of fighting in which Hitler youth would rush at Americans from behind roadblocks, firing wildly until they were mowed
down.

Pop was going home.

Less than five hours before Easy Company 119th Inf. was scheduled to shove off across the Rhine, battalion telephoned that Pop was leaving the next morning. That meant he wouldn't be in on the crossing.

Pop was a relative newcomer to the company - hooked on to it in January - but he wasn't a newcomer in combat. He'd been overseas for 31 months, was in on four D-Day operations: Africa, Sicily, Italy and Normandy. No one was begrudging him the 30-day furlough to the States. He had earned it.

But, down in the cellar where the Third Platoon was holed up and waiting to take off, the boys were riding Pop . . . said he was walking out on the company just when they needed him . . . called him a deserter.

Pop--his name is Pfc Delbert Tompkins, of Eureka, Cal.-- isn't really old. Only 35. But he has false teeth and has a fatherly way about him, so everybody just naturally called him Pop.

He just sat there and grinned as they kidded him.

"Hey, Pop," called S/Sgt. Chester Biggs, of Washington. "You're gonna miss all them German cigars on the other side of the Rhine."

Pop simply smiled.

Pvt. Maurice Swanson, of Sidney, Mont., asked. "How about seeing my girl in Los Angeles when you get home Pop?"

Someone else yelled across in the room, and S/Sgt. Garland Hall, of Hillside, Va., Pop's squad leader, came in and said, "He's quitting me, that's what he's doing. I bet you're gonna get drunk every night when you get home."

Pop didn't answer.

Sgt. Jack Ward, of Pensacola, Fla., and one of the medics, passed around some aspirin, like you would candy . . . just for the hell of it.

"I'm not going to even offer you any, Pop," Ward said, "You haven't got the right to have a headache."

And then, someone asked Pop how he felt about going home. He hesitated, than said slowly: "Hell, Doc, how would you feel?"

Everybody was silent. Nobody moved. You could almost read the thoughts of every man in the cellar . "How would you feel about going home?"

They stopped riding Pop after that. A couple of them went outside to watch them bomb across the Rhine. Some curled up on the floor, trying to get some sleep. The rest just sat there . . . thinking.

Men of the 823rd TD Bn., claiming to be the first tank destroyers across the Roer, reported comparatively light resistance the first day. But on the second discovering the 30th Inf. Div. had moved too last to dean out everything, the 823rd found by passed strong-points of machine gun nests and roaming tanks.

The TDs knocked out a pillbox, two machine gun's and two 20mm guns. Next day the battalion got a Tiger, two certain Mark IV's and one probable and an anti-tank gun.

Meanwhile, the 29th Div. attacking an the left flank, had pushed back a large number of enemy. They were retreating across the plain to the north when the 823rd thrust out from among the trees. Driving them into buildings, the TD men hurled 195 rounds into the structures, demolishing them. Thus gaining entrance to the plain, the 823rd drove north.

They were handing out discharges so quick and so slick at this German PW "separation center" that you felt like sneaking into line yourself,

No points were necessary. They didn't care whether you had one or umpteen battle stars, if you'd been overseas or if you had quintuplets. All they required was that you were a German. That you weren't a general or a member of the German General Staff, that you weren't an SS-er, a bigwig in the Nazi Party, or a war criminal and that the CIC didn't find any other flies on you. If you passed those tests you were out like a Kraut.

In its first day's business today, the Plauen camp group processed prisoners, from handed them their discharges from the Wehrmacht, and loaded them on trucks headed for a distribution point near their homes where they were to be turned loose.

Maj. Reynold Erickson, of Miles, Iowa, and the 120th Inf. Regt. who runs the place, says that when the kinks which a casual observer can't see are worked out, a thousand walking papers will be issued daily.

The discharge station is under the control of Lt. Ernst Sharpe, of Durham, N. C., and the 120th, aided by Pfc Mortimer Satter, an ex-lawyer from New York City, who set up a filing system which speeds up the process, but who keeps the help on the ball and is general red tape eliminator. All the "help" in the place are German soldiers.

The station is set up like a big American induction station. Batteries of clerks fill out a long series of papers.

The prisoners undergo a physical, given by German army doctors, and about as thorough as the familiar "He's warm, he's in" test of U. S. draft days. Then they're paid off - the equivalent of 16 bucks for EMs and twice that for officers - their papers are signed, stamped, and delivered, and they're ready to be sent home to till the land and make little Germans.

It's quick and painless, taking maybe a half day. In fact, it's so good that a 30th Div. Joe on guard here muttered a little bitterly: "Ya know, for the first time I wish I was in the German army. They lose the war, they get out. We win, we stay in."

As he spoke, 1,250 field and self-propelled artillery and mortars out loose in a cyclone of sound. And nobody bothered to talk any more.

Over the shoulders of Capt. Warne Parker's  men you could see the bursting of shells painting the skyline red, and silhouetting the doughboys in their life jackets.

Slowly, they moved up and reached the boats, 300 yards from the river. The engineers, who manned the assault craft, were waiting.

Seven men to a storm boat, 15 to an assault boat. In a long row, they dragged the craft 300 yards that seemed more like 3,000. When they rested, they could see the far bank pounded to powder.

At 0155 the boats in the first wave were at the water's edge. Five minutes to wait and they crouched, panting, sweating, tense.

H-Hour ..... and the crash of artillery along the opposite shore lifted, softened in the distance.

At the tiller of one boat, Pvt. Chester Dabrowski, of Minneapolis, Minn., fiddled with the outboard motor. It sputtered and died. The men paddled. If stuttered again, then caught.  We pulled our paddles in and The boat veered left, right, then straight across. In the bow, T/5 James Sorbet, of Westchester, Pa., flashed signals to Dabrowski with a fluorescent lamp.

As the boat headed across, we were swallowed in the smoke screen laid down on the river, as the moon disappeared. The passengers - 2/Lt. Stanley Das, battlefield commissioned officer from Methuen, Mass., Pfc Earl Barefoot, of Erwin, N.C, Pfc James C. Winters, of Sarasota, Fla., Pfc George Yokell, of Lewiston, Ma., Pfc Noah Kelly, of Clarksburg, Va., and INS correspondent Frank Conniff hugged the bottom and ducked the spray.

Machine-Gun Tracers

The boat headed in, its motor was cut, and we scraped the bank. Tracers, from two machines outlined the crossing boundaries, and the ripping noise of a burp gun answered their staccato.

The doughs hopped out and headed toward the dike 100 yards from the bank with Sorber yelling after them, "Take it easy, guys."  But no one turned to answer. They kept on going, over the dike, past the cringing Germans, who popped out of a stone cistern, crying, "Nichts, Nichts, kamerad", across the flat at a dead run. They were heading east when we saw them last---clue east.

The streets were empty and the threat of German artillery and mortar fire kept them that way. Near a house squatted a seemingly deserted American anti-tank gun.

But a man was watching over the desolate scene, Sgt William Crabtree, Huntsville, La., was on guard in an OP just below the gun.

The second battalion was temporarily on the defensive and Sgt. Crabtree's 57mm gun was guarding this approach to the battalion's positions.

Two shells came in driving the sergeant from his OP, but suspecting trouble, he crawled back to the stairs and saw three German Mark IV tanks approaching.

Summoning one of his men he dashed to the gun. A German shell came in, knocking one wheel off the gun and slightly wounding the sergeant, but the two men slammed three shells into the lead tank, destroying it and causing the rather two to stop, reconsider and retreat.

When the threat of the tank attack had lifted, Sgt Crabtree went forward with his infantry platoon leader to have a better look at the terrain. Four hundred yards away eight Germans were leaving a pillbox, but the lieutenant and the sergeant opened up with their M-1 rifles and killed or wounded the entire group.

Citizens of this Dutch town today thanked doughfeet tankers and TD men of the 30th Inf. Div. for liberation of Maastricht last Sept, 12 at formal ceremonies here.

About 600 men of the 30th were present, heard addresses by Lt. Gen. William N. Simpson, Ninth Army commander, Maj. Gen. L. S. Hobbs, division commander, and Maastricht's burgomeister. Less formal thanks were given the 30th at a dance tonight.