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to the rear by carrying casualties. Rudd barred all riflemen from litter-bearing. He demanded court-martials for three men suspected of incurring self-inflicted wounds, and fumed when their company commander reported that since there had been no witnesses there was no evidence on which to charge them. The same company commander complained about the behaviour of his replacement riflemen: “They keep their heads down and won’t look up. They think if they just lie there, the krauts can’t see them. They’re getting killed without firing a shot.” In Private George Sheppard’s company of the 319th Infantry, one man killed himself to escape from the attack. “He overdid it,” said Sheppard laconically. “Some guys actually thought it was easier to die than to go on.” Patton delivered a personal reprimand to the commanding general of the 94th Division after its initial failure to cross the Sauer, remarking scathingly on the fact that his units had reported more non-combat than combat casualties.

Major William DuPuy personally briefed every platoon and squad commander of his battalion of the 357th Infantry for the Sauer crossing. DuPuy had inherited command a few weeks earlier, when his predecessor walked into the CP and announced that he couldn’t take it any longer. As H-Hour approached, DuPuy checked every sub-unit: “A few of the men we had to put into the boats at pistol-point. I suppose that is not an approved leadership technique.” When the boats reached the other side after taking the first wave across the river, “a lot of the engineers simply abandoned them and wouldn’t go across again. So my guys had to scarf up the boats and drag them right up the bank right across from the pillboxes, in the middle of the night. Those engineers were not brilliant. They probably thought they were in with a bunch of madmen.”

Yet it is important to match tales of men who gave way to fear with those of others who pressed on. Lieutenant William Devitt of the 330th Infantry saw his own sergeant spin and fall after a German machine-gun burst caught him. To the officer’s amazement, the sergeant then got up, held up his helmet in surprise to reveal two holes in it and ran on forward. Devitt reflected that not a man in the platoon would have held it against the NCO if he had said: “That’s enough. I quit. I’m leaving. I’ll see ya after this war’s over.”

Sergeant Tony Carullo’s company of 2nd Infantry got across the Sauer intact, but then ran into trouble among the German positions on the far side. They were pinned down when Carullo’s platoon commander, a Californian named Marvin Shipp, crawled over and said: “Come on, get up, we’re going to make it to the rail tracks.” The men reluctantly followed, but Lieutenant Shipp was shot a few minutes later. “He never even knew he’d just made it to captain,” said Carullo sadly. His platoon was enraged. They shouted at the German position: “Kommen sie hierher! Hände hoch!” When a German cautiously showed himself, a Pennsylvanian named Johnny Komer shot him at once: “We were all so mad because they’d killed our lieutenant.”

It was three days before the Sauer crossing was secure. Yet though the Americans suffered difficulties, they were able to keep moving. Hitler signalled his displeasure in the usual fashion, by sacking the commander of Seventh Army on 20 February. It is hard to see what any German general could have done better or differently, however, faced with attacks in such overwhelming strength. When the U.S. 5th Division crossed the Prüm on the night of 24 February, it met little resistance. For the first time, many Germans seemed ready to surrender without a fight. Patton’s formations broke through the West Wall on a front of some twenty-five miles, and were also making good progress further south. Walker, commanding XX Corps, staged an imaginative operation on the night of 23 February, when in advance of an attack by the 94th Division he sent 5th Ranger battalion to create a roadblock around Zerf, to prevent German reinforcements from intervening. The Rangers did the job with their usual drive and effectiveness.