Our ground forces, while not yet at peak strength, continued constantly to increase. On August 1 our divisional strength on the Continent was thirty-five, with four American and two British divisions in the United Kingdom. By October 1 our aggregate strength on the Continent, including the Sixth Army Group which had advanced through the south of France, was fifty-four divisions, with six still staging through the United Kingdom.3 All our divisions were short in infantry replacements, and in total numerical strength of ground forces the Germans still had a marked advantage. We were disposed along a line which, beginning in the north on the banks of the Rhine, stretched five hundred miles southward to the border of Switzerland. To the south of that country detachments were posted on the French-Italian border to guard against raids on our lines of communication by the Germans in Italy.
This meant that, counting all types of divisions—infantry, armored, and airborne—we could, on the average, deploy less than one division to each ten miles of front.
In view of all these conditions there was much to be said for an early assumption of the defensive in order to conserve all our strength for building up the logistic system and to avoid the suffering of a winter campaign. I declined to adopt such a course, and all principal commanders agreed with me that it was to our advantage to push the fighting.
One important consideration that indicated the advantage of keeping up our offensives to the limit of our troop and logistical capacity was the knowledge that in order to replace his great losses of July, August, and September the enemy was hastily organizing and equipping new divisions. In many instances he was compelled to bring these troops into the lines with but sketchy training. Initially they had a low order of efficiency, and attacks against them were far less costly than they would become later as these new enemy formations succeeded in perfecting their training and their defensive installations.
Intelligence agencies were required to make exhaustive daily analyses of enemy losses on all parts of the front. The purpose was to avoid attacks in those areas where the balance sheet in losses showed any tendency to favor the enemy. During this period we took as a general guide the principle that operations, except in those areas where we had some specific and vital objective, such as in the case of the Roer dams, were profitable to us only where the daily calculations showed that enemy losses were double our own.
We were certain that by continuing an unremitting offensive we would, in spite of hardship and privation, gain additional advantages over the enemy. Specifically we were convinced that this policy would result in shortening the war and therefore in the saving of thousands of Allied lives.
Consequently the fall period was to become a memorable one because of a series of bitterly contested battles, usually conducted under the most trying conditions of weather and terrain. Walcheren Island, Aachen, the Hurtgen Forest, the Roer dams, the Saar Basin, and the Vosges Mountains were all to give their names during the fall months of 1944 to battles that, in the sum of their results, greatly hastened the end of the war in Europe. In addition to the handicap of weather there was the difficulty of shortages in ammunition and supplies. The hardihood, courage, and resourcefulness of the Allied soldier were never tested more thoroughly and with more brilliant results than during this period.
The strength of our growing ground force was multiplied by the presence of a powerful and efficient air force.
Tactically, an air force possesses a mobility which places in the hand of the high command a weapon that may be used on successive days against targets hundreds of miles apart. Aerial bombardments are delivered in such concentrated form as to produce among defending forces a shock that is scarcely obtainable with any amount of artillery.
For pinpointing of accessible targets, the air was normally not so effective as artillery. Moreover, against general targets, air power did not destroy—it damaged. An industrial area was never eliminated by a single raid and, indeed, rarely obliterated beyond partial repair even by repeated bombings. Lines of communication were never, except in extended periods of good weather, completely severed beyond any hope of use. But the air did deplete the usefulness of anything it attacked and, given ideal flying conditions and when used in large concentrations, could carry this process of depletion to near perfection.
Air attack by a single combat plane is a fleeting thing, and the results achieved do not always conform to first estimates. Air reports of destroyed vehicles, particularly armored vehicles, were always too optimistic by far. This was not the fault of pilots. Each fighter-bomber airplane was equipped with a movie camera which automatically recorded the apparent results of every attack. The films were examined at bases and became the basis of “Air Claims,” but we found that this method provided no accurate estimate of the damage actually inflicted. Exact appraisal could be made only after the area was captured by the ground troops.
For the delivery, in a single blow, of a vast tonnage of explosives upon a given area, the power of the air force is unique. Employment of large bombers in this role has the advantage of imposing no strain upon the forward lines of communication. Every round of ammunition that is fired from an artillery shell is unloaded at a main base and from there progresses to the front over crowded rail and road lines. After several handlings it is finally available for use at the gun site. The big bombers are stationed far in the rear; in our case they were in the United Kingdom. The bombs they used were either manufactured in that country or brought over from the United States in cargo ships. From factories or ports they went to appropriate airfields, and from there were delivered in one handling directly against the enemy.
The air can be employed in a variety of ways to forward the progress of the land battle. Its most common functions are to prevent interference with our ground forces by enemy airplanes, to render tactical assistance to attacking troops by fighter-bomber effort against selected targets on the front, and to facilitate capture of strongly defended points by heavy bombardment. In these close-support activities it has, of course, certain limitations. In Europe bad weather was the worst enemy of the air, and the unexpected advent of rain, fog, or cloud often badly disarranged a battle plan. In the middle of December bad weather prevented the air from discerning the concentration of unused German strength in the Ardennes, and made the air force of little use to us in the first week of that battle. Moreover, by its nature, the air cannot stay constantly at the front; each plane must return periodically to its base for refueling and servicing. This limited the number present at the front to a fraction of the total numbers available. Occasionally enemy planes could therefore strafe our front lines, even though in over-all numbers our air strength was relatively overwhelming.
The air force had other important uses. One of these was to attack the enemy’s supply lines. Still another was that of increasing the decisiveness of the ground battle. Every ground commander seeks the battle of annihilation; so far as conditions permit, he tries to duplicate in modern war the classic example of Cannae. In the beginning of a great campaign, battles of annihilation are possible only against some isolated portion of the enemy’s entire force. Destruction of bridges, culverts, railways, roads, and canals by the air force tends to isolate the force under attack, even if the severance of its communications is not complete.
In the fall of 1944 our air strength, in operational units, including the associated bomber strength, was approximately 4700 fighters, 6000 light, medium, and heavy bombers, and 4000 reconnaissance, transport, and other types.4
While this build-up was proceeding during the fall months there was, as originally planned, much to be done operationally. In the north, besides capturing the approaches to Antwerp, it was desirable to make progress toward closing the Rhine, because it was from this region that our heaviest attacks would be launched in the crossing of that river. Farther south, on Bradley’s front, it was advantageous to conduct preliminary operations looking toward the final destruction of all German forces remaining west of the Rhine. Thus we would not only dep
lete the forces available for the later defense of the river but we would also secure the areas in the Saar region from which we planned to launch strong attacks in conjunction with those in the north, when we were ready to envelop the Ruhr.
In the fall fighting we again encountered our old enemy, the weather. The June storm on the beaches had established a forty-year record for severity. Again in the autumn the floods broke another meteorological record extending back over decades. By November 1 many of the rivers were out of their banks and weather conditions along the whole front slowed up our attacks. In spite of these conditions we proceeded with the general plan of building up great bases and communications to the borders of Germany, closing the Rhine with initial emphasis on the left, preparing for the destruction of the German forces west of the river, throughout its length, and getting ready to launch the final assaults toward the heart of Germany.
Capture of the approaches to Antwerp was a difficult operation. The Scheldt Estuary was heavily mined, and the German forces on Walcheren Island and South Beveland Island completely dominated the water routes leading to the city. It was unfortunate that we had not been successful in seizing the area during our great northeastward reach in the early days of September.
Reduction of these strongholds required a joint naval, air, and ground operation. Montgomery gave General Crerar of the Canadian First Army responsibility for developing and executing the plans.5 Preparatory work was started shortly after the city fell into our hands on September 4.
The only land approach to the hostile positions was by a narrow neck connecting South Beveland with the mainland, and the operation was worked out to include an attack westward along this isthmus, co-ordinated with an amphibious assault brought in by sea. The necessary forces for the attack could not be assembled until late October. If I had not attempted the Arnhem operation, possibly we could have begun the Walcheren attack some two or three weeks earlier.
To the Canadian 2d Division was assigned the job of entering the neck, and from there attacking westward along the isthmus against the Germans on South Beveland. The troops were frequently forced to fight waist-deep in water against strong German resistance and it took them three days to reach the west end of the isthmus. But by October 27 the division had established itself on the island proper. The British 52d Division was landed on the south shore of South Beveland on the night of October 25–26. The two forces then fought forward in a converging attack to a juncture and by the thirtieth of the month South Beveland was entirely in our possession.
The defending garrison on Walcheren Island consisted of the troops that had escaped from South Beveland and of detachments from the German Fifteenth Army, which had originally been stationed in the Calais area.
The amphibious assault against Walcheren, on November 1, was carried out against some of the strongest local resistance we met at any coast line during the European operation. To provide supporting fire, only small naval vessels could be used but these unhesitatingly pushed in close to the Walcheren Island shore and persistently engaged heavy land batteries in order to assist the troops going ashore. Losses among the naval vessels were abnormally high but the courage and tenacity of the crews were responsible both for the successful landing and for minimizing losses among assaulting personnel.
A feature of this difficult campaign was a novel employment of big bombers to blow up portions of the dikes that held back the sea from the lower levels of the island. These breaches, permitting the sea to flood critical sections of the defenses, were of great usefulness in an operation that throughout presented unusual difficulties.6
Final German resistance on the island was eliminated by November 9, by which time some 10,000 enemy troops had been captured, including a division commander. The cost was high. For the entire series of operations in the area our own casualties, almost entirely Canadian and British, numbered 27,633. This compared to less than 25,000 in the capture of Sicily, where we defeated a garrison of 350,000.7
With this effort accomplished, we began the clearing of mines from the Scheldt Estuary. As usual the Germans had installed their mines in great profusion and the job, in spite of unremitting work on the part of the Navy, required two weeks for completion.
The first ships to begin unloading in Antwerp arrived there November 26. The Germans had begun launching V-1 and V-2 weapons against the city in mid-October. While the bombs were frequently erratic, as they had been in London, the V-2s caused considerable damage in the district. Numbers of civilians and soldiers were killed and communications and supply work were often interrupted, although usually only for brief periods. The civilian population of Antwerp sustained these attacks unflinchingly. One V-2 bomb struck a crowded theater and killed hundreds of civilians and an almost equal number of soldiers.
The enemy also employed large numbers of E-boats (a small, speedy type of surface torpedo boat) and tiny submarines to interfere with our use of Antwerp. These weapons we countered by energetic naval and air action. In spite of all difficulties, Antwerp quickly became the northern bulwark of our entire logistical system.
While this spectacular and gratifying operation was in progress on the northern flank, the rest of the front was far from quiet. On the Twenty-first Army Group front Montgomery succeeded in concentrating enough strength so that on November 15, immediately following the fall of Walcheren Island, he undertook an eastward drive. Winter conditions were now approaching and his advances were made over difficult country, but by December 4 he had cleared out the last German pocket west of the Maas, the same river which, farther south in Belgium and France, is called the Meuse.
Because of the extended front held by the Twenty-first Army Group it was impossible at the moment to launch further strong offensives in that area. Montgomery’s army group had long since absorbed all the British Empire troops available in the United Kingdom, including the Canadian Army and the Polish division. Further reinforcement was impossible unless, as eventually happened, a few additional units could be brought up from the Mediterranean theater. The Americans were in a different position. Reinforcing divisions were rapidly coming from the United States, and as they reached the battle front they provided strength for the execution of important tasks and made it possible to broaden the American sector whenever necessary to provide opportunity for concentrations on the flanks.
Immediately south of the British area Bradley, on October 22, brought into line the U. S. Ninth Army under General Simpson.8 On November 16, Bradley renewed his offensive toward the Rhine in the northern part of his sector. The attack was carried out by the Ninth and First Armies and was preceded by a heavy bombing of the enemy and by artillery bombardment. Twelve hundred and four American and 1188 British heavy bombers participated, the operation being another example of the extent to which we were then using the heavy bomber to intervene effectively in the ground battle.9
These attacks initially employed fourteen divisions, and the number was soon increased to seventeen. Nevertheless, progress was slow and the fighting intense. On the right flank of this attack the First Army got involved in the Hurtgen Forest, the scene of one of the most bitterly contested battles of the entire campaign. The enemy had all the advantages of strong defensive country, and the attacking Americans had to depend almost exclusively upon infantry weapons because of the thickness of the forest. The weather was abominable and the German garrison was particularly stubborn, but Yankee doggedness finally won. Thereafter, whenever veterans of the American 4th, 9th, and 28th Divisions referred to hard fighting they did so in terms of comparison with the Battle of Hurtgen Forest, which they placed at the top of the list.10
In spite of numerous smaller battles of the same sanguinary character, in which units were pinned down for days as they dug out the defending garrisons, general progress continued until we reached the banks of the Roer River, where the Ninth Army arrived on December 3.
At the banks of the Roer we met a new kind of tactical problem. Farther up the river, at Schmidt, were great dam
s. They were of special defensive value to the German because, by operation of the floodgates in the dams, he could vary the water level below them. This made an immediate assault across the Roer River impossible, since any troops successful in crossing could be isolated by a flooding of the river and thereafter eliminated by the employment of German reserves.11
We first attempted the destruction of the dams by air. The bombing against them was accurate and direct hits were secured. However, the concrete structures were so massive that damage was negligible, and there was no recourse except to take them by ground attack. Because the dams were located in difficult mountain country the attack was certain to be slow and costly. After an attack by the 28th Division had failed to make satisfactory progress a heavy assault was started by the First Army December 13.
Meanwhile, south of the Ardennes Forest, the Third Army launched an attack on November 8. Its offensive was aimed generally at the Saar region and made excellent initial progress. North of Metz, bridgeheads were established across the Moselle, and shortly after the middle of November the leading troops crossed the German frontier. Metz was surrounded and cut off. The city surrendered November 22.12 However, some of the forts in the vicinity held out stubbornly and it was almost the middle of December before the final one was reduced and mopped up.
In the right sector of the Third Army the advance quickly brought us up against some of the strongest sections of the Siegfried Line, those guarding the triangle between the Moselle and the Rhine. In this region the Siegfried comprised two general lines of defenses. The forward one was a continuous system of obstacles and pillboxes, but was of no great depth. In the rear was another line, of extraordinary strength. It featured a series of field forts, mutually supporting, arranged in a line more than two miles deep. These defenses slowed up the advance of the Third Army, and since their reduction required a vast amount of heavy artillery ammunition, the attacks there were suspended until additional logistical support could be provided.
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