Buddy's War #58- The Last Offensive

[Note: It has been over a month since I last posted on the movement of the 10th Armored Division/80th Medical Battalion. A whole bunch of different things happened, like the pandemic and related consequences. I apologize for that. In this post, I will do a summary of the month of April which saw a great deal of movement for Buddy’s Company C. I will not be posting each day’s movement as you will see below. The month will end with them in place for the end of the war. Next week I will do some more reviewing as we come to the end of the war in Europe. There will be more to come.]

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The month of April was the “last offensive.” The epilogue to the section on this campaign in “Hyperwar” says it well:

The only basic matter to be decided by the last offensive was not whether the Germans would be reduced to total defeat, but when. Given the stranglehold and almost mystic fascination that Hitler and his coterie exercised over the German people and the incredible loyalty of German military commanders to a regime that long had been discredited, perhaps it was inevitable that the end would come only when the nation was prostrate, almost every square inch of territory under the control of the victors. In those circumstances, whether the invaders insisted on unconditional surrender or came shouting mercy and forgiveness probably would have had little effect on the outcome.

Map indicating all locations in April 1945 for Company C,

80th Armored Medical Battalion of 10th Armored Division

     •    Wednesday, April 4, 1945

Got up at 10-.  It is cold so I did not do anything. Wrote to Ruth and Buddy. Received a box from Ruth- 2 shirts and 2 tea towels.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

    ✓    Company C Morning Reports
    ✓    1 - 16 April 1945

This period of April was the last major offensive of the war for the 10th Armored Division. It appears to have been one of the more difficult of the battles the 10th had faced. A report issued a few years after the war noted that some of the difficulties may have been caused by moor planning and lack of clear communications. I am not a big fan of George Patton, but his reputation and drive make me wonder if this would have been as difficult a mission if the 10th Armored had still been with Patton and the Third Army.  In any case, the greater difficulty faced by Company C can be seen in the lists of casualties in the Morning Reports for April 6-10.

    ✓    6 April 1945

Marvin Tews T5 and Simon Smith Pfc — Missing in Action

Tews was a surgical tech, like Buddy,  and Smith was an aid man. I did some digging on the Internet and found that both these soldiers ended up as prisoners of war. They both were liberated and repatriated. Tews (26), from Minnesota,  in October 1945 and Smith (23), from Michigan, in July 1945. They both lived into their mid-80s.

    ✓    8 April 1945

Noble Long Sgt. and Emmett Gilberts Cpl — Killed in Action

The Morning Report gave no duty listing for either of these soldiers. They were the first, and only, killed in action from Company C during the war.

Joseph Vendittelli T4 —  Slightly wounded in action. Lacerating wound, forehead. Not Hospitalized

    ✓    9 April 1945

- Joseph Vendittelli T4 — wounded in action. Penetrating wound, right foot, burns about face. Trfd to evacuation hospital
- George Tennant Pfc — Penetrating wound hand and arms. Trfd to hospital unknown
- William Cash Pvt — Penetrating wound arm. Trfd to hospital unknown
- Carl Kopp 1st Lt — Slight gunshot wound face and left thumb. Not hospitalized

    ✓    10 April 1945

Robert Gilbert Pfc and John Lower Pfc — Missing in Action
Gilbert, like Marvin Tews and Buddy, was a surgical tech. It appears that Lower was an ambulance driver. 

I don’t know the story, but both returned to duty seven days later on 17 April.

     •    Thursday, April 12, 1945

Got up at 10-. Got ready for club. We had a nice time but Ruth called at 6 o’clock and said President Roosevelt had died at 4.30. It was an awful shock.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

     •    Friday, April 20, 1945

Got up at 10-. Cleaned upstairs. Cleaned the kitchen. Wrote to Ruth. It is raining tonight. 9 o’clock and father is not home yet.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

As it drove into Bavaria, the division overran one of the many subcamps of Dachau concentration camp in the Landsberg area on 27 April 1945, earning it recognition as a liberating unit. (Link)

As April ended they were in place for VE Day a little more than a week later. Perhaps the final indication of the reason they had been fighting was discovered on 27 April when portions of the 10th Armored liberated one of the many subcamps of Dachau. (Still looking for more information at this point.) Again, the epilogue to the Last Offensive section of Hyperwar says it best.

 As the last offensive came to an end, few if any who fought in it could have entertained any doubts as to the right of their cause--they had seen at Buchenwald, Belsen, Dachau, and at a dozen other places, including little Ohrdruf, what awful tyranny man can practice on his fellow man. To erase those cruel monuments to evil was reason enough for it all, from bloody OMAHA Beach to that bridgehead to nowhere over the Elbe. (Link)

     •    Sunday, April 29, 1945

Got up at 10-. Got dinner. Mrs. S. came in for a while. Wrote to Buddy.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

Buddy's War #56- To the Rhine

    ✓    Company C Morning Reports
    ✓    16 March 1945

Departed Trier 1015. Traveled 10.9 miles via motor convoy to Lampaden, Germany. Supporting CCB.  Arrived 1145. Set up clearing station and billeted troops. Weather fair. (MR)

Combat commands of the 10th Armored Division began passing through infantry of the 80th and 94th Divisions before daylight on 16 March. Although the Germans of General Hahm's LXXXII Corps during the night had formed a new crust of resistance sufficient to deny genuine armored exploitation for another twenty-four hours, no doubt remained among either American or German commanders as the day ended that a deep armored thrust was in the offing. (Hyperwar)

    ✓    17 March 1945

Left Lampaden 1630. Traveled approximately 8 miles via motor convoy to Kell, Germany. Arrived 1730. Set up clearing station and billeted troops. (MR)

Early on 17 March, the 10th Armored Division drove eight miles and seized a bridge intact over the little Prims River, last water obstacle short of the Nahe. (Hyperwar)

    ✓    18 March 1945

Left Kell 1115. Traveled 12 miles via motor convoy to Otzenhausen, Germany. Arrived 1400. Set up clearing station and billeted troops. (MR)

    ✓    19 March 1945

Left Otzenhausen 1440, Traveled 12 miles via motor convoy yo Wolfersweiler, Germany. Arrived 1540. Set up clearing station and billeted troops. Weather clear. (MR)

As worked out in detail by Patch and Patton, the two armies split the area between the Nahe River and the Rhine almost equally, with a new boundary running just north of Kaiserslautern and reaching the Rhine south of Worms. Patton nevertheless intended to take Kaiserslautern himself and then turn one infantry and one armored division southeast, deeper into Patch's zone, to link with the Seventh Army's VI Corps along the Rhine. Thereby he hoped to trap any Germans who might remain in front of the Seventh Army in the West Wall. That accomplished, Patton "would clear out of [Patch's] area."51 The plan presumed, of course, that the Seventh Army at that point would still be involved in the West Wall, but in any event, Patch apparently accepted the agreement with the same good grace earlier accorded the Supreme Commander's proposal.

It took another day before the effects generated by the heat began to show up on headquarters situation maps, but by 19 March a graphic representation of the Third Army's gains looked, in the words of Patton's colleague, General Hodges of the First Army, "like an intestinal tract."53 With the added weight of the 12th Armored Division (Maj. Gen. Roderick R. Allen), General Walker's XX Corps made the more spectacular gains. By midnight of the 19th, the 12th Armored was across the upper reaches of the Nahe and had gone on to jump a little tributary of the Nahe, more than twenty-three miles from the armor's line of departure of the day before. The 10th Armored Division stood no more than six miles from Kaiserslautern. (Hyperwar)

    •    Monday, March 19, 1945

Got up at 10.30. It is raining.Changed the beds. Had a letter from Buddy. He is in Germany. Wrote to Ruth and Dora.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

    ✓    20 March 1945

Left Wolfersweiler 1125. Traveled 23 miles via motor convoy to Reichenbachsteegen, Germany. Arrived 1453, Set up clearing station and billeted troops. (MR)

    ✓    21 March 1945

Left Reichenbachsteegen 0845. Traveled 17 miles via motor convoy to Schopp, Germany. Arrived 1320. Set up clearing station. Billeted troops. Supporting CCB. (MR)

There were 152 admissions in the three companies of the 80th Medical Battalion on the 21st; there will be another 205 ton the 22nd as this drive south continues. Hence Company C will remain at Schopp for an extra day. They have traveled 83 miles in these six days.

[The] 10th Armored Division [was turned] south and southeast into the Pfaelzer Forest. By nightfall of 20 March, two of the 10th Armored's columns stood only a few hundred yards from the main highway through the forest, one almost at the city of Pirmasens on the western edge, the other not far from the eastern edge. A third was nearing Neustadt, farther north beyond the fringe of the forest. The 12th Armored meanwhile was approaching the Rhine near Ludwigshafen. Not only were the withdrawal routes through the Pfaelzer Forest about to be compromised but a swift strike down the Rhine plain from Neustadt and Ludwigshafen against the last escape sites for crossing the Rhine appeared in the offing. 

In desperation the Luftwaffe during 20 March sent approximately 300 planes of various types, including jet-propelled Messerschmitt 262's, to attack the Third Army's columns, but to little avail. Casualties on the American side were minor. Antiaircraft units, getting a rare opportunity to do the job for which they were trained, shot down twenty-five German planes. Pilots of the XIX Tactical Air Command claimed another eight.

In the face of the 10th Armored Division's drive, the word to the westernmost units of the XC Corps to begin falling back went out late on the 20th, and when the 42d Division, in the mountains on the left wing of the VI Corps, launched a full-scale assault against the West Wall late the next day, the attack struck a vacuum. Soon after dawn the next morning, 22 March, a regiment of the 42d cut the secondary highway through the Pfaelzer Forest. A column of the 10th Armored had moved astride the main highway through the woods and emerged on the Rhine flatlands at Landau. Any Germans who got out of the forest would have to do so by threading a way off the roads individually or in small groups. 

By nightfall of 22 March, the Germans west of the Rhine could measure the time left to them in hours. (Hyperwar)

(Note on this map: I have tried to give the scope of what was happening during this week with Patton racing to cross the Rhine before Montgomery. As such he utilized the 10th Armored to block the southern escape route. In so doing, as described in the text, he moved the 10th and its units out of the Third Army territory, crossing them into the Seventh Army of General Patch. Hence all the different places listed in this map with the movement of Buddy's Company C shown in blue as usual.)

By March 23, the Third Army engineers were ready, and Patton, desperate to cross the great river before Monty, decided that his men should make a feint at Mainz and cross at once at Oppenheim. By daylight on the 23rd, six battalions were over the river for a loss of only 28 men killed and wounded, while other infantry and engineer units had crossed just to the north, at Nierstein, without opposition. Patton telephoned Bradley: “Brad, don’t tell anyone but I’m across … there are so few Krauts around there they don’t know it yet. So don’t make any announcement. We’ll keep it secret until we see how it goes.”

However, the Germans soon became aware of the crossings and after heavy Luftwaffe raids on the Third Army pontoon bridges during the day, Patton called Bradley again that evening: “For God’s sake tell the world we’re across … I want the world to know Third Army made it before Monty.” 

In fact, the world already knew. At Bradley’s headquarters that morning, Patton’s representative had announced that the Third Army had crossed the Rhine at 10 pm on March 22, “without benefit of aerial bombing, ground smoke, artillery preparation and airborne assistance.” Clearly, this was a dig at Montgomery, who was using all these assets at that very moment to assist his crossing of the same river. (Warfare Network)

    ✓    23 March 1945

Clearing Section left Schopp 0900. Traveled 12 miles. Arrived Rodalben, Germany at 1000. Opened clearing station 1100. C.P. and remainder of company left Schopp at 1620. Traveled 32 miles via motor convoy to Annweiler, Germany. Arrived 2030. Set up clearing station and billeted troops. (MR)

They have now traveled a total of 115 miles in 8 days. They still have a week to go in the month.

It appears that, as a result of the coordinated efforts between Third and Seventh Armies, the 10th got to the right place at the right time. Now they will be attached to General Patch’s XXI Corps, 7th Army for the rest of the war. Patton has utilized them well on his own personal race to the Rhine. Now they move to other things.

    •    Friday, March 23, 1945
Got up at 10. Gee, but I feel bad. Cleaned some. Father washed the windows.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

Buddy's War #52- A Busy Week

    ✓    Company C Morning Report
    ✓    25 February 1945

Left Perl Germany at 1520. Traveled 9 miles via motor convoy to Kollesleuken, Germany. Set up Clearing station. Closed bivouac area 1620. (MR)

▪    25 February: Press Communique

The Tenth Armored completely cleared the Saar-Moselle Triangle in four days of slashing attacks, thus setting the stage for a new offensive east of the Saar.

It appears that Company C remained west of the Saar until the next day, no doubt due to casualties and evacuation of patients.

    •    Monday 26 February

Got up at 10.30. Mrs. B fixed my hair. Gee I am afraid we are going to have a flood.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

    ✓    Company C Morning Report
    ✓    26 February 1945

Left Kollesleuken 1620. Traveled 6 miles via motor convoy to Serrig, Germany. Crossed Saar River 1745. Arrived 1800. Set up clearing station and billeted troops. 117 casualties treated and evacuated. (MR)

This is one of the few times that any casualty numbers are given in the Morning Report. I wonder if that was a way of noting that Company C had that number of evacuations on the same day as a company movement. The way it is written would seem to indicate that the evacuations occurred at Serrig after having arrived at 6:00 pm. In cross-referencing with the monthly After Action Report, the whole battalion reports 130 evacuations that day. It is possible that Company C moved when it did because its clearing station was needed. This would also be indicated by the apparent movement past Beurig where they will return the next day.

    ▪    27 February 1945
The 94th Infantry and its engineers had constructed heavy duty pontoon bridges at Saarburg. This gave one continuous bridgehead from Ockfen to Taben. (See map below)

According to Province’s timelines in Patton’s Third Army, all three of the Division’s Combat Commands were active during this period. By the 27th the 10th will be just 6 miles south  of Trier and by the 28th, within a mile.

    ✓    Company C Morning Report
    ✓    27 February 1945

Departed Serrig at 1350. Traveled 3 miles to Beurig, Germany. Set up clearing station and billeted troops. (MR)

27 February- CC B was located on the heights overlooking Trier from the east. Their covering action appears to have been a life saver for many. Part of what CC B managed to do was, through the initiative of Colonel Roberts, "locate and make passable a cut-off that help speed up the attack." Originally the downhill route had to "navigate a sharp left turn and go uphill- all in the face of withering anti-tank fire…. Tiger vehicles, wrecked and burning, were mute testimony to enemy marksmanship." The cutoff with a sudden turn ended up fooling the Germans who were expecting the Division to continue on toward the Rhine. (Nichols)

  

  ▪    28 February: Press Communique

Tonight the Tenth Armored “Tiger” Division stands on the threshold of Trier- leading elements at a late hour were less than two miles from the city- with four task forces moving steadily along the high ground overlooking this important communications and supply center. Behind the imminent nature of Trier lies a story of bold tactical operation. Eight days ago the division was given the sole mission of clearing the Saar-Moselle Triangle- a mission that was accomplished in two days, catching the Germans so completely by surprise that orders were suddenly issued for the Tenth Armored to cross the Saar…  

Tonight… the entire division is now moving up the southern approaches within striking distance of Trier.

    •    Wednesday, February 28

Got up at 10. Went to the store. Received 3 letters from Buddy of Jan 27 and 28 and Feb 2. The ice went out of the river.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

~~~~~~~~~
End of the Month
While there are a few more days before Trier is captured, I will pause here to give a quick glance at the end of this month in 1945.

After over a month of waiting, February thrust the full 10th Armored/80th Medical back into war. The 80th Armored Medical Battalion’s end of the month After Action Report shows the change that occurred in battle at the end of February. From 1 February to 22 February the battalion’s clearing stations had 715 admissions with approximately a 40% return to duty. (This is only an approximation.) The last six days of the month saw 1019 admissions with only a 3% return to duty. As would be expected the largest number  of admissions were seen on the 27th and 28th of the month as the Tigers headed toward Trier after clearing the Saar-Moselle Triangle. Hence my comment above on the day Company C arrived at Serrig.

Of the troops of the 80th, three enlisted men were listed as wounded. I am not sure whether any of these were from Company C. The Morning Reports are a little bit unclear and might indicate one such battle casualty. There were no deaths. During the month the 80th received 19 reinforcements- one officer and eighteen enlisted men. Company C reports they received at least 11 of those reinforcements with 9 coming from the 94th Medical Gas Treatment Battalion. This was the battalion that ran the Army Air/Rail Medical Evacuation Holding Unit which was located near Thionville. My guess is that as the Bulge ended, the Allies held more territory, and the war became a more mobile action the ability to evacuate more quickly ended the need for this type of a holding unit.

The recommendations made in the AAR included a call for a “practical system of collecting bodies from the Division clearing stations.” An automated every other day collection by graves registration was suggested. There were 11 deaths in the clearing stations in February. That number would double in March.

Rick Atkinson in The Guns at Last Light, the third in his monumental trilogy of the Second World War, gives us the background of why this concern may have been raised.

As fresh reserves came forward, legions of dead men were removed to the rear. Each field army developed assembly lines to handle five hundred bodies a day; … Innovative techniques allowed fingerprints to be lifted from bodies long buried and for hidden laundry marks to be extracted from shredded uniforms… Reuniting a dead man and his name was the last great service that could be rendered a comrade gone west.

Interestingly one source connected with the Department of Defense says that currently there are about 73,000 still “missing in action” from World War II. That is about 19% of the over 400,000 killed in action. Another source, also using official DoD statistics, lists the number at 10,000 or 2.5% although that may not include those officially listed as “missing in action”, only those as unidentified. There are, for example, no unidentified soldiers from Vietnam and 150,000 from the Civil War in this source. But whether it is 73,000 or 10,000 the loss of life represented in just those numbers is staggering!

Each life is personal. It is hard to think in such large numbers. That “last great service” of Graves Registration can be overlooked in he great scheme of battles fought and wars waged, but to each family whose family member was identified, it allowed closure. Large numbers can numb us to the true nature of war deaths. It is only those we knew personally, or can identify with that bring him the nature of such conflict. That is as staggering for each person as it is in the overall numbers.

General Patton
The 10th was under the direction of the Third Army and therefore the controversial and very famous General Patton. He was either loved or hated! I remember my aunt, Buddy’s sister, speaking in almost reverent tones when she mentioned his name, even twenty years after the end of the war. Stephen Ambrose in Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany Jun 7, 1994-May 7, 1945 gives a picture of Patton’s almost monomaniacal approach using as an example this period of the Saar-Moselle Triangle and the attack on Trier.

THROUGH February, Patton attacked, whatever the conditions. He was at his zenith. His energy, his drive, his sense of history, his concentration on details while never losing sight of the larger picture combined to make him the preeminent American army commander of the war. …

Patton's worst enemy was the weather and what it did to the roads. The nightly freezes, the daily thaws, and the heavy traffic combined to make them impassable. Patton at one point in early February was forced to turn to packhorses to supply the front line. Still he said attack.

On February 26 elements of Third Army captured Bitburg. Patton entered the town from the south while the fighting was still going on at the northern edge of town. About this time Patton was spending six hours a day in an open jeep inspecting, urging, prodding, demanding. …

History was very much on his mind. In the evenings he was reading Caesar's Gallic Wars. He was especially interested in Trier, at the apex of the Saar Moselle triangle, on his northern flank. The historic city of the Treveri, according to Caesar, had contained the best cavalry in Gaul. Patton wanted Trier. He inveigled the 10th Armoured out of Bradley and sent it to take the city.

We come to the end of February, the re-initiation to battle for the Tigers of the Tenth Armored. They are on the edge of taking Trier and then moving across Germany to cross the Rhine. A great deal will happen in the next 60 days.

Buddy's War #51- With Skill and Daring

    •    Monday 19 February

Got up at 9.30. Gee it is so lonesome. So I am not doing much. Wrote to Buddy and Dora.

Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

Field orders # 11 and 16 were now implemented. The 10th Armored and the 94th Infantry Divisions were set to make their coordinated attack. The 10th had been at Metz for nine days. The headquarters would not remain that long in any place again until the end of the war. By the 19th were in Apach, FR, just across the French/German border from Perl. They were to take the Saar-Moselle Triangle.

On Monday, 19 Feb 1945: In spite of some of their numbers on furlough in Paris, the advanced troops left at 1800 that evening and some raced as much as 75 miles to begin the attack the next morning at 0700. The 94th had already done its job and all was set for the 10th to roll through.

    ✓    Company C Morning Report
    ✓    20 February 1945

Left Metz, France, at 0001 via motor convoy. Traveled 25 miles to Metrich, France. Arrived 045. Supporting CC B. Billeted troops (MR)

 This movement of Company C was overnight, six hours behind the first troops of the Tenth, in order to be in position. They would be 7 miles from Perl as the attack began at 0700 on 20 February- just shy of three hours after Company C arrived in Metrich.

Nichols in Impact! says:

Now the preliminary rounds were over. In the course of the next few days, the 10th Armored Tigers were to overrun the Saar-Moselle Triangle- one of the most heavily fortified areas in the world- and capture the important supply and communications center of Trier, oldest city in Germany. This battle operation was performed with skill and daring, and it brought praise to the Tigers from all quarters as General George S. Patton, in open admiration, termed this battle “one of the war’s most audacious operations.”

Company C was assigned to Combat Command B (CC B) at this point and much of the first attacks appear to have been made by CC A and CC R. Company C remained at Metrich on the 20th and then moved into Germany the next day.

    ✓    Company C Morning Report

    ✓    21 February 1945

Convoy departed Metrich 1015 and traveled 7 miles to Perl, Germany. Arrived 1325. Entered Germany 1320. Set up clearing station and billeted troops. Roads muddy. Weather clear. Morale of troops excellent. (MR)

Also on the 21st according to Nichols, General Patton visited the Division HQ. He studied the maps and the situation and ordered them to “cross the Saar and take Trier.” Nichols continued

When Patton returned to his Third Army Headquarters that night, he phoned SHAEF and got permission to do what he had already done, in committing the Tenth Armored Division across the Saar.

By the end of the day on 21 February, the Tenth had penetrated “northward almost to the junction of the Saar and Moselle.” The press communique, written originally by Nichols, goes on:

During the two days, the 10th Armored Division has captured 23 towns and approximately 1250 prisoners and has occupied approximately 85 square miles of German soil.

Resistance encountered in the second day of the 10th Armored’s drive consisted of mine, roadblocks, small arms fire, and craters in the road.

    •    Thursday, Feb 22

Got up at 10-. Did not do much. Wrote to Buddy. Ruth called. Baked a cherry pie.

Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

Province, in Patton’s Third Army, lists the work of the 10th during this time:

2/22 Reducing Moselle Triangle and destruction of German artillery
2/23 Expanded bridgeheads
2/24 Building bridges and increasing size

Both CC A and CC B managed a quick crossing at Taben, in essence bringing the Saar-Moselle Triangle to an end. In his communique on 25 February Nichols told the press:

The Tenth Armored completely cleared the Saar Moselle Triangle in four days of slashing attacks, thus setting the stage for new offensives east of the Saar.

Halted temporarily at Ayl, above Saarburg, where enemy fire repeatedly prevented construction of a pontoon bridge, the Tenth Armored nevertheless resumed its offensive. Elements of age Tenth were ferried across the Saar Thursday night [22 Feb], under heavy artillery, machine gun and sniper fire. … During the late afternoon and night on Saturday, [24 Feb] three armored infantry battalions of the Tenth had been transported across to the vicinity of Ockfen.

More action will occur as the Tenth heads to capture Trier over the next several days. The Tenth was in Germany and would remain there for the rest of the war.

    •    Saturday, Feb 24

Got up at 9.30. Went to the store. Did not do anything all day.

Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

Buddy's War #35- Entering the Battle

    ◆    75 Years Ago
    ◆    2 November 1944
The 10th Armored Division officially joined the front line forces.

The 10th Armored and attached troops have now been on the Cotentin Peninsula for a month. They have trained, planned, waited, and watched the weather. The troops were no less frustrated than Patton himself was. They were in Europe, but not yet in the war.

As October ended it became time to move.

The 80th Armored Medical Battalion, Company C, consisted of 18 officers and 104 enlisted men.

    ✓    Company C Morning Reports- Record of Events

    ✓    26 October- Departed bivouac area 2.1 mi NW of Quettehou [at] 0405. Traveled 127.2 mi via motor convoy to bivouac 1 mi east of Falaise arrived 1715. (MR)
[13 hours travel. 9.8 mph]

    ✓    27 October- Convoy left bivouac area 1 mi east Falaise [at] 0905. Traveled 74.7 mi to bivouac area 1/2 mi east of Damville. Closed bivouac 1830 (MR)
[9 1/2 hours travel. 7.9 mph]

• Charles M. Province in the book Patton’s Third Army, reports that During this week the “10th Armored continued to move toward the XX Corps assembly area."

    ✓    28 October- Departed area 1/2 mi east of Damville at 0906. Motor convoy arrived at bivouac sire 1/2 mi west of Claye Souilly at 1725. Traveled 83.4 mi  (MR)
[8 1/2 hours travel. 9.9 mph. Co.C most likely passed around or through Paris on this day.]

    ✓    29 October- Departed area 1/2 mi west of Claye Souilly at 0907. Motor convoyed 69.2 mi to bivouac 1 1/2 mi east of Bar Le Duc. Closed bivouac 1632. (MR)
[7 1/2 hours travel. 9.2 mph]

    ✓    30 October- Left Bivouac vicinity of Ba Le Duc 0907. Traveled via motor convoy 98 mi. Billeted company in village of Lachaussee.  Arrived 1700. (MR)
[8 hours travel. 12.3 mph]

They have traveled 452 miles in 5 days, on the road for 46.5 hrs, with an average speed of 9.7 mph. Today that trip could be made in 8 1/2 hours (with tolls).

    ✓    31 October- Set up clearing station and evacuated patients. (MR)


They were assigned to the Reserve Combat Command (CC R) and were located 8 miles south of the 10th's Division HQ at Mars Le Tour and about 20 miles southwest of the fortress city of Metz where they would soon be engaged in their first battle.

They were bivouacked in an area that was unfortunately too small for movement. Then it rained and rained  providing a very muddy, but relatively quiet few days. Nichols in Impact says that it was perhaps the worst bivouac area of war for them. Their purpose was to assist XX Corps in the containment of enemy troops in preparation for the attack on Metz. They were to move around behind the forts and cut off the retreating enemy.



The 10th was to fall into line, one-by-one behind the 90th Infantry then move through providing support and cover. From all that was reported, it was not particularly  good geography (or weather) for the tanks, but the 10th managed and found its place.



This was part of what Province in Patton's Third Army says was the continuing practice of rotating and regrouping Third Army units in contact with the Germans. It had two purposes. One was to give as much rest as possible to those troops in extended contact with the Germans for the greatest amount of time. The other was to keep the enemy guessing as to the plans of the Third Army.

When November and time for the battle around Metz came, the XX Corps (part of the Third Army) under General Walton H. Walker had a total of 30 infantry battalions, 500 tanks, and more than 700 guns. Their  plan had two phases. One was to destroy all German forces around Metz and then to switch the advance to the northeast to catch the enemy as they pulled out of Metz.



On November 2, 1944, the 10th was pulled into place and had their first awareness of combat. It was a generally quiet area and not much else was to happen for the next two weeks, but the enemy had been engaged for the first time.

War was now a reality.


Buddy's War #34- Metz Before the 10th Arrived

    ◆    75 Years Ago
    ◆    25 September to 31 October 1944

The Battle of Metz stalled due to material and fuel shortage.

The battle for and around the ancient city of Metz began well before the 10th Armored entered the fray. The Third Army, under General George Patton had been activated in August in Normandy. Then, beginning in late July the swept across 400 miles of France in one month. It got to the Lorraine region where it met the German First Army intent on defending the line along the Moselle River. This began the Battle of Fortress Metz.

Here is a summary of the battle for Metz prior to the beginning of November. It is abridged and adapted from the Warfare History Network.

Metz before the 10th Arrived
    The 12th Army group was running short on fuel. On September 25 12th Army Group commander Lt. Gen. Omar Bradley had ordered Patton to go on the defensive. That meant that Patton was unable to follow up his plan that might have allowed his troops to reach the West Wall before the onset of bad weather.

    Patton was too impatient to sit idly by with German forces within striking distance and no amount of  grumbling would help. At the end of September 1944 fuel wasn’t the only commodity in short supply for the Third Army. Patton’s men also lacked howitzer ammunition, rain gear, blankets, and sufficient rations. Morale dipped as a result, and Patton set about finding a way to keep his troops in the fight––regardless of the dismal supply situation.

    [He] submitted to Bradley a plan …to continue limited offensive operations. “The whole plan was based … on maintaining the offensive spirit of the troops by attacking at various points whenever my means permitted it,” Patton wrote in his memoirs. In addition to keeping his various units in fighting trim, these limited attacks were meant to adjust the Army’s line in key places so as to give the units favorable departure points for resuming full-scale offensive operations once more fuel became available.

    Meanwhile Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force General Dwight D. Eisenhower and his staff envisioned a two-pronged offensive to capture the Ruhr and Saar industrial regions that fed the Third Reich’s belly. … First Army and Ninth Army would lead the primary attack against the larger Ruhr in the north, while in the south General George Patton’s Third Army would strike at the smaller Saar and therefore face Metz.

    Metz was an  ancient, 1500-year old fortress town on the Moselle River. It had been virtually  indestructible over the previous millennium with defenses that had prevented any army from conquering the city since Atilla the Hun in 451 AD. The sprawling fortress system spread six miles west of the River and reached back another four miles to the east of the old city. Metz was therefore the most heavily fortified city in Europe at the time, consisting of 43 forts arrayed in an inner and outer belt that together mounted 128 heavy guns.

    Bradley arranged for Patton to receive three fresh, untested divisions for the upcoming offensive…  [One of these was] Maj. Gen. William Morris’s 10th Armored Division, which did not take up its place on Walker’s left flank until November 2. Patton waited as the battle went nowhere for a month and a half.

    The fuel began arriving the first week of November. The only thing holding the Third Army back now was the inclement weather- neither the first nor last time that the weather would have an impact. Heavy rains transformed fields into quagmires, swept bridges off their moorings, and made existence miserable for GIs who lacked the most basic foul-weather gear. Shortages of galoshes and waterproof shoepacs caused an epidemic of trench foot.

It was in this stalled offensive that the 10th Armored Division would soon get its introduction to war.

    ◆    75 Years Ago
    ◆    25 October 1944

        The 10th Armored Division and Buddy’s 80th Armored Medical Battalion were spending their last day on the Cotentin Peninsula. Tomorrow morning at 0405 they will start their move toward the war.

Buddy's War #27- Almost Ready

    ◆    75 Years Ago
    ◆    6 June - 21 August 1944

D-Day to D-Day+76: Allies moving south and east across France after D-Day.

The Normandy landings were the first successful opposed landings across the English Channel in over eight centuries. They were costly in terms of men, but the defeat inflicted on the Germans was one of the largest of the war. Strategically, the campaign led to the loss of the German position in most of France and the secure establishment of a new major front. In larger context the Normandy landings helped the Soviets on the Eastern Front, who were facing the bulk of the German forces and, to a certain extent, contributed to the shortening of the conflict there. (-Link)

It was not a smooth and easy invasion. In fact, through the month of June and most of July, the Allies made very little progress. They needed a breakthrough- a breakout from the Normandy peninsula and get moving across France. It came from July 25-31 in Operation Cobra.

Operation Cobra was the codename for an offensive launched by the First United States Army (Lieutenant General Omar Bradley) seven weeks after the D-Day landings, during the Normandy Campaign of World War II. The intention was to… break through the German defenses that were penning in his troops… (-Link)

As seems to be the story of the invasion and much of what would happen over the next months, the operation was delayed at first- by the weather. When it did begin on 25 July, it proved as decisive as Bradley and the Allies hoped. Within the next few days, the Allied forces managed what has since been referred to as their “breakout. “

The immediate aftermath was the ability to expand the forces and put further plans into action.

At noon on 1 August, the U.S. Third Army was activated under the command of Lieutenant General George S. Patton. Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges assumed command of the First Army and Bradley was promoted to the overall command of both armies, named the U.S. 12th Army Group. Patton wrote a poem containing the words, 

So let us do real fighting, boring in and gouging, biting.
Let's take a chance now that we have the ball.
Let's forget those fine firm bases in the dreary shell raked spaces.
Let's shoot the works and win! Yes, win it all! (-Link)

The U.S. advance following Cobra was extraordinarily rapid. Patton and the Third Army were hell-bent for leather rush across France as can be seen below. This is an animated series of maps showing

An incredible series of maps from June 6 - August 21, 1944. About 10 weeks into the invasion. It is interesting to note that the Allies were relatively slow until the very beginning of August, then they seem to explode across France. Click on map if it is not moving. (-Link)

Animated maps, 6 June to 21 August

Three days after the final series of maps above, the "Battle of Paris" ended with Allied troops liberating the French capital.

The 10th Armored Division, one of the key elements of Patton’s plan for the Third Army, was now at Camp Shanks, NY, waiting to board a ship. Within three weeks they will be heading east among the first divisions to travel directly from the United States to the mainland of Europe.