Citizen Soldiers_ The U.S. Army from the - Stephen E. Ambrose [34]
On September 21 the tanks moved out, only to be stopped halfway to Arnhem by two enemy battalions with tanks and 88s. There were Jabos overhead, but the radio sets in the RAF ground liaison car would not work. That afternoon the 9th SS Panzer Division overwhelmed Frost's battalion. Some days later the survivors of 1st Airborne crossed the Rhine to safety. The division had gone into Arnhem 10,005 men strong. It came out with 2,163 live soldiers.
OVER THE next six months the front line in Holland hardly moved. For the 82nd and 101st that meant months of misery. They couldn't move by day, because the Germans held the high ground to the east and had enough 88 shells to expend at a single soldier whenever one was visible.
The American airborne troops had been trained as a light infantry assault outfit, with the emphasis on quick movement, daring manoeuvres, and small-arms fire. Now they were involved in a static warfare that was reminiscent of World War I. And as in the Great War, the casualties were heaviest among the junior officers.
Stefanich gone, Cole gone, Wray gone, so many others gone. Reflecting on the losses, Dutch Schultz commented, "By the end in Holland, most of the officers trained by General Gavin had become battlefield casualties." The pain of the loss of these good men was compounded by the knowledge that nothing had been gained. At the end of September, Patton's Third Army was stuck; the supply crisis was worse than ever. Antwerp wasn't open. And Market-Garden had failed. What would be the consequences?
Chapter Five
The Siegfried Line: October 1944
As THE Americans reached the German border from Luxembourg north, they were entering country that had been fought over since Caesar's time. It was interlaced with ancient walled cities, and villages that made natural strongpoints.
The French region of Lorraine is south of Luxembourg. Since the beginning of European civilization it has been a battlefield. It was an invasion route for the Germanic tribes coming from Central Europe into France. Over the centuries there have been many fortifications in the area, which is bounded on the east by the Saar River and on the west by the Moselle River.
Metz is on the Moselle, 45 kilometres north of Nancy, the historic ruling city of Lorraine. Metz is perhaps the most heavily fortified city in the most heavily fortified part of Europe. Fifteen fortifications were built close around the city in the seventeenth century by the famous French military engineer Sebastien Vauban. The Prussians came through Metz in 1870, nevertheless. After the Franco Prussian War, Bismarck incorporated Lorraine into the new Germany, and the German army constructed a second, outer belt of twenty-eight forts, mainly north and west of the city. In 1918 Lorraine returned to France. Soon the French army was building the Maginot Line some twenty kilometres east and north of Metz, while the Germans built the Siegfried Line another twenty kilometres to the east, along the line of the Saar River, the prewar border.
Hitler, whose faith in reinforced cement never wavered-a result of his World War I experiences-poured a lot of it into the Siegfried in this area. By 1940 the strongest part of the Siegfried faced the strongest part of the Maginot Line. In the summer of 1944, when the retreat from Normandy began, Hitler poured more cement, put more guns into the Siegfried and Metz forts, and waited.
Hitler had the weather on his side. Fall is the wet season in Lorraine, with an average monthly rainfall in autumn of 3 inches. In November 1944, 6.95 inches of rain fell during the month.
Patton cursed. His Third Army's mission was to take Lorraine, but in the sheets of cold rain, with the mud clinging to boots and tank treads, and the Moselle at flood stage, he couldn't do it. He lusted for Metz. To get it, he had to take Fort Driant. The fort stood on a dominating hill, with clear fields of fire up and down the Moselle. The Americans could not cross the river above or below Metz until