General Millikin, who had formerly commanded the III Corps and had now been given the 13th Armored Division, spent the night. His attitude was excellent, and I promised to talk to his division at the earliest opportunity.
The country between Nuremberg and Hersfeld was some of the most beautiful I had ever flown over. We passed several farms which were undoubtedly horse farms, as they had exercise tracks behind the stables.
While at the XX Corps Headquarters I presented General Walker with my three-star pins, as he had also been promoted on the list with me.
On the twenty-first, the Third Army lost its Surgeon, Brigadier General Thomas D. Hurley, and nearly lost its Ordinance Officer, Colonel Nixon, with stomach complaints. Hurley had to go home and Nixon had to be operated on, and would probably have died had not Colonel Odom visited him and ascertained his precarious state of health.
So ended the Rhine Campaign which had cost us 17,961 casualties.
Casualties reported as of April 21 were:
——————
1
The actual composition of the task force was one company of tanks and one company of armored infantry, 11 officers and 282 men.
2
These two lieutenants reported that General Patton’s son-in-law, Colonel J. K. Waters, was a prisoner in the camp at Hammelburg and had been shot during the melee at the camp when the American troops arrived.
3
Lieutenant Colonel G. R. Pfann, Secretary, General Staff, Third Army.
4
Joseph Driscoll, New York Herald Tribune, President of American War Correspondents’ Association.
5
sLater Lieutenant Colonel J. T. Quirk, Public Relations Officer, Third Army.
8 CROSSING THE DANUBE AND ENTERING CZECHOSLOVAKIA AND AUSTRIA
April 22 marked the beginning of the end. General Patton had landed the first American troops in Africa on November 8, 1942, and his Third Army ended the main fighting in Europe on May 9, 1945. (See Map, pages 300-301.)
He conducted American troops through three years of successful operations against the enemy. He never issued a defensive order. His theory—attack, attack, attack, and, when in doubt, attack again—shortened the war by never giving the enemy a chance to organize or reorganize enough to make a concerted attack against him.
The termination of hostilities and the stop line imposed by higher authority halted the Third Army on May 9. They had gone farther, captured more prisoners, crossed more rivers, liberated more friendly territory and captured more enemy territory, than any army ever before in American history.
At the end of the campaign, the Third Army switched its attack to the southeast, cleared Bavaria, cleaned out the uGhost of the Redoubt,” entered Czechoslovakia, crossed the Alps, and joined the Russians in Austria, east of Linz.
Farther north, the British and Americans joined hands with the Russians on the Elbe River and in Berlin. The Seventh American and French First Armies cleared
the Alps in their zone and joined with the American Fifth Army in Italy.
In the Pacific, Rangoon fell to the British, and all effort went to establishing bases for an invasion of Japan proper.
The air forces and the Navy pounded the enemy on all fronts.
P.D.H.
The Last Round-up
By April 22, it was obvious to me that the end of the war was very close, but there were still those who insisted that a great German concentration existed to the south in the so-called “Redoubt.”
We shifted our Command Post from Hersfeld to Erlangen. Codman and I drove there in the rain and sleet and, while passing over the top of the mountains at an altitude of four thousand feet, ran into a little snow. From Bamberg to Erlangen the traffic situation was extremely bad, owing to the fact that we had only one-way bridges, and that no officers except General Maddox and myself had enough initiative to get out and straighten out the messes.
Erlangen is a university town built at the time of the Huguenot persecutions. I was surprised to discover that mansard roofs dated from that period, as for some reason I thought they originated in 1870.
The 11th Armored Division, the 71st and the 65th Divisions did very well. I made arrangements with General Bradley to keep the 70th Division in the vicinity of Frankfurt on occupation duty, and to increase its strength with replacements, who were not being used owing to our low casualties. Actually, this division, for a time, was almost a division and a half.
On the twenty-third, I drove to Headquarters of the XII and XX Corps. The autobahn from Erlangen to Bayreuth, Headquarters of the XII Corps, was a very beautiful drive, as was the cross-country drive from Bayreuth to Bamberg, although, from a military standpoint, the latter road was crooked and difficult.
When I returned to Headquarters, General Patch called up and asked me to swap the 14th Armored for the 20th Armored. The 14th Armored was still fighting in the vicinity of Munich and in the zone of the III Corps, while the 20th Armored was in the vicinity of Wurzburg and could be more readily put into the zone of the Seventh Army. I agreed at once.
On the twenty-fourth, I addressed the officers and men of Milliken’s 13th Armored Division as requested.
The 3d Cavalry Regiment reached the Danube in the vicinity of Regensburg at 0400 on the morning of the twenty-third. The III Corps, under the great leadership of Van Fleet, started moving out rapidly, and it was amusing to find that the 14th Armored Division, which, prior to the arrival of Van Fleet, had been conducting a protracted, though unsuccessful, war with the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division (SS Oberführer Bochmann), suddenly drove them from its front.
April 25 was quite an interesting day. We learned that the five thousand enemy soldiers, who had got in touch with the 26th Division the previous afternoon and stated their desire to surrender, were White Russians who had been fighting for the Germans against the Russians. The question then arose as to whether they were prisoners of war or allies. We finally got a decision that they were prisoners of war, and they were and still are. In my opinion, they are in a very bad fix, because if the Russians ever get them they will unquestionably be eliminated.
The XIX Tactical Air Command reported large numbers of troops, race unknown, moving upstream on both sides of the Danube, and that they contained some armor with a great deal of horse transport and guns. Whether they were Russians, or Germans fleeing before the Russians, we were unable to decide, but figured that, by a vigorous advance, we would eventually solve the problem.
At noon Bradley called up suggesting that the First Army extend to the south and take over the line of the Czechoslovakian frontier to a point close to the juncture of that frontier with the Austrian border, moving there by successive corps as the situation to the north cleared up. This was very satisfactory to us, as we had a very long open flank along the frontier.
The 14th Armored reached the Altmuhl River about the center of the HI Corps sector, while the leading regiment of the 86th Division, same corps, reached the river on the right of the corps boundary at Eichstatt. Van Fleet assured me he would get across that river and be on the Danube by night. He was a very willing worker and a great soldier.
We had been having continuous rumors from air reconnaissance of a movement up the Danube Valley on both sides of the river, and felt that the 11th Armored Division, which had crossed the Naade River and progressed eight kilometers southeast of it, would possibly be the first to run into these troops. Combat Command “A” (commanded by Brigadier General W. A. Holbrook, Jr.) and Combat Command “B” (commanded by Colonel W. W. Yale) were then six miles south of Regensburg, where they had had quite a fight, but, after breaking the crust there, the rest of the advance was simply a road march.
The battle casualties of the Third Army for the two preceding days had not exceeded a hundred on either day, and the non-battle casualties were equally low.
Considering that at this time the Third Army had fourteen divisions in action and an equivalent number of corps and army troops, one gets
an idea of how cheap the fighting was. As a rough measure, if you multiply the number of divisions by thirty thousand, you come very close to the total number of troops present; this includes division, corps, and army troops.
On the twenty-sixth, at Schwabach, I decorated Van Fleet with the Distinguished Service Medal and then visited the 99th Division and the 14th Armored. Neither Van Fleet nor I was particularly impressed with the activities at the Headquarters of these two units.
The 86th Division of the III Corps had reached Ingoldstadt and was fighting just outside the town.
Returning to Headquarters, I found that both the 65th and 71st Divisions of the XX Corps had crossed the Danube, one east and one west of Regensburg. They encountered moderate resistance without artillery fire, and were proceeding rapidly on their mission.
In the XII Corps, the 11th Armored Division was six miles from the Austrian border. One battalion of the 90th Division was closing in on Cham to cover the pass through that town in the rear of the 11th Armored Division, as we had a constant rumor that the 11th German Panzer Division was about to attack through this pass.
A German officer came into the 26th Division and informed General Paul that there were five barges anchored on the Danube in the immediate vicinity, which, if bombed or shelled by us, would cause the death of all human beings within a radius of thirty kilometers. Paul told him to put guards on the barges and wait until we arrived, which was done. He also took precautions to warn our air force not to do any promiscuous bombing of barges on the river. Actually, the barges contained poison gas.
This reminded me of a story I had just heard from a captured German. It seems that two hundred SS troops, all of whom had been Hitler Youth, were given a special course of instruction in bombing and navigation. They were told they were to use a new type of lead-dust bomb, which we interpreted to mean an atomic bomb, for the purpose of destroying all human life in Germany. On hearing this happy plan, eighty of the boys refused to participate and were eliminated—or so the others were told. The remaining boys were taken to a high point to see an experiment. An airplane flew low over an area and dropped a bomb, which produced something which looked to them like great air waves. Later the boys were blindfolded and driven for an hour in trucks, and then their eyes were unbandaged and they were told to examine the ground. The area to which they were taken had been covered with snow, but whatever had gone off had melted the snow, pulverized the small rocks, cracked the big ones, and removed all trees. However, they stated that the waves were apparently of a visual nature, as anything behind a big hill was unhurt. The same prisoner stated that, in the vicinity of Salzburg, there was an underground hangar containing one hundred and eighty airplanes, each of which was provided with one of these bombs.
Two points in the story seemed dubious. General Doolittle pointed out to me, for example, that the airplane dropping such a thing would not fly low; also, the prisoner seemed too intelligent. Later, when we got to Salzburg, we could find no indication of the underground hangar or the one hundred and eighty airplanes.
This was the first day I had visited the center of Nuremberg, which was really an appalling sight. The old walled city, which had been so beautiful, was completely destroyed—I think the most completely of anything we had so far seen. All of this could not be attributed to the Air Corps, because it had been necessary for the XV Corps, Seventh Army, to put on quite an artillery bombardment in order to persuade the Germans to leave.
On the twenty-seventh, Codman and I flew to the Headquarters of the XX Corps at Pittersberg and had the ceremony of pinning three stars on General Walker. He had been reluctant to put the stars on until he heard that the Senate had confirmed him. I teased him, saying he must have had a bad conscience. Personally I have always worn my new rank as soon as I have heard it has been forwarded to the President.
Accompanied by Walker, we drove to a point east of Regensburg and then across the Danube River on a treadway bridge. The Danube is not particularly impressive. Near the bridge, however, were several barges loaded with the knocked-down parts of a submarine.
Later, we flew to the Headquarters of the XII Corps and talked to General Irwin. The 11th Armored Division had crossed the Austrian border and the 90th and 26th Divisions were closing up. Irwin was still somewhat worried about his long open flank, which had not been completely covered when the V Corps1 of the First Army came in under Bradley’s plan. I authorized Irwin to let the 11th Armored lay up a couple of days for maintenance, as it had been out of action only four days in the last thirty.
1The V Corps was commanded by Major General Clarence R. Huebner.
In the III Corps, the 86th and 99th Divisions were successfully over the Danube and the 14th Armored was crossing the river.
There was very evidently a race on between the III and XX Corps, both of which were commanded by efficient and pushful officers.
The XII Corps could not be in the race, owing to the fact that the road conditions in its area were so bad that it could advance only in column of divisions, and then with difficulty.
The 5th Infantry Division was again released to us under the command of General “Burfey” Brown.1 We promised that we might eventually trade the 97th, a green division, for it when the 5th had passed to the front.
Generals Spaatz, Doolittle, and Vandenberg came to lunch and I had a guard of honor for Spaatz and Vandenberg, as neither of them had been saluted since they were promoted.
The British Broadcasting Company came out with the statement that Himmler had sent a proposition to the United States and Great Britain for an unconditional surrender, but had been told that there was nothing doing unless Russia was also considered.
On the twenty-ninth, Lieutenant Graves and I flew to Viechtach, fifteen miles southeast of Cham, but were unable to land, so had to fly back to Cham and then drive to the aforementioned town, which was the Headquarters of the XII Corps. This corps was pushing on Linz, and I suggested they turn off to the right sufficiently to capture, or threaten to capture, Passau, with a view to getting control of, or causing the Germans to blow up, the bridges over the Inn and Danube Rivers, which meet at this point. Either solution would have been satisfactory, as the chief purpose of securing the bridges was to prevent the Germans from moving troops up the south bank of the Danube with a view to putting them in the “Redoubt” area.
We then flew to the XX Corps at Regensburg, where we found General Walker ensconced in the palace of the Princes of Thum and Taxis. This is a most ornate building occupying four sides of a city square and containing a theater, a library, an armory, and three churches, to say nothing of a park and picnic area. I subsequently lived in the palace, so should not criticize Walker for occupying it. In fact, he showed good judgment. The Princes of Thurn and Taxis acquired the Bavarian mail monopoly some three hundred years ago and invented the postage stamp. As a result of their forethought the family is still very rich.
1Major General A. E. Brown.
The bag of prisoners for the twenty-ninth amounted to twenty-eight thousand.
The month ended with the situation of the Third Army not greatly changed, except that the 26th Division was almost in Passau and the 11th Armored was closing on Linz. We secured from General Bradley the 4th Armored Division in a swap for the 16th, which had not yet been in action. The idea was to use the 4th Armored and the 5th Infantry Divisions to attack southwest up the valley of the Traun River on Salzburg, in conjunction with the attack from the northwest by the XX and III Corps. In this part of the war, terrain was more important than the enemy, and the route from Linz to Salzburg up the river was better than the roads being used by the other two corps. Had we secured Passau in time, the 4th Armored and 5th Infantry could have moved up from there, because, in addition to the route from Linz to Salzburg, there was also another one up the southern bank of the Inn River from Passau which could be utilized, provided we were successful in capturing the bridges at that town; so the plan gave me, in effect, two strings to my bow.
&
nbsp; We learned that, on the twenty-ninth, the XIX Tactical Air Command had had some very good shooting on an armored concentration north of Cham, which later turned out to be armored elements of the 11th Panzer Division.
As an indication that everybody thought the war was over, I was directed to make a two-minute recording of a speech to be given on VE-Day.
On May 1, General Lee and his Aide, Major H. D. Rothrock, Colonel Codman, and I flew from the airfield at Nuremberg in some Cubs to Headquarters of the III Corps at Mainburg. We then drove to the Isar River, where the 86th Division was effecting a crossing at Freising, and then downstream toward Moosberg. On the way we came to the 14th Armored Division which was crossing, and I noticed that all the tanks were covered with sandbags. This was very stupid. In the first place, it made the soldiers think the tanks could be hurt; in the second place, it overloaded the machinery; and in the third place, it provided no additional protection. I ordered their removal at once.
While we were at this bridge, an International Red Cross man and his alleged wife tried to get over with the troops—also a group of drunken Englishmen. Neither party succeeded.
We then drove to the Allied Prisoner of War Camp at Moosberg, where some thirty thousand Allied prisoners of war, mostly officers, had been confined and were still awaiting repatriation by air. The camp was commanded by an RAF Group Captain with whom I had dined in London in 1942. The executive officer was Colonel P. R. Goode, U.S.A., whose illness during the march from Poland to southern Germany was the reason that Colonel Waters did not try to escape. Waters felt that, if he abandoned Goode, the latter would probably die. No one knew I was coming, so the considerable ovation which greeted me was spontaneous. The prisoners were well disciplined and quite clean.
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