Citizen Soldiers_ The U.S. Army from the - Stephen E. Ambrose [73]
On February 4, C Company pushed off into the Siegfried Line. Honey recalls "charging into a snow storm with fixed bayonets and the wind blowing right into our faces. After moving through the initial line of dragon's teeth we began encountering deserted pillboxes. At one command post out came ten Germans with hands in the air offering no resistance."
Private Irv Mark of C Company said the enemy troops "were waiting to surrender and the one in charge seemingly berated us for taking so long to come and get them. He said, 'Nicht etwas zu essen' (nothing to eat). Strange we didn't feel one bit sorry for them."
Few companies were that lucky. Sergeant Clinton Riddle of the 82nd Airborne was in Company B, 325th Glider Infantry. On February 2 he accompanied the company commander on a patrol to within sight of the , Siegfried Line. "The dragon teeth were laid out in five double rows, staggered. The Krauts had emplacements dotting the hillsides, so arranged as to cover each other with cross fire."
Returning from the patrol, the captain ordered an attack. "It was cold and the snow was deep," Riddle recalled. "There was more fire from the emplacements than I ever dreamed there could be. Men were falling in the snow all around me. That was an attack made on the belly. We crawled through most of the morning." Using standard fire-and-movement tactics, the Americans managed to drive the Germans beyond the ridge. "When we reached the road leading through the teeth," Riddle said, "the captain looked back and said, 'Come on, let's go!' Those were the last words he ever said, because the Germans had that road covered and when he was half-way across he got hit right between the eyes. There were only three of us in our company still on our feet when it was over."
Another twenty-five men turned up, and the new CO, a lieutenant, began to attack the pillboxes along the road. But the Germans had been through enough. After their CO fired the shot that killed the American captain, his men shot him and prepared to surrender. So, Riddle relates,
"when we reached the pillboxes, the Germans came out, calling out
'Kamerad.' We should have shot them on the spot. They had their dress uniforms on, with their shining boots. We had been crawling in the snow, wet, cold, hungry, sleepy, tired, mad because they had killed so many of our boys." The Americans were through the initial defences of the Siegfried Line, and that was enough for the moment.
THE 90th DIVISION reached the Siegfried Line at exactly the spot where the 106th Division had been decimated on December 16. At 0400, February 6, the 359th Regiment of the 90th picked its way undetected through the dragon's teeth and outer ring of fortifications. Shortly after dawn pillboxes that had gone unnoticed came to life, stopping the advance. A weeklong fight ensued.
The Germans employed a new tactic to confound the Americans. Captain Colby explained it: "Whole platoons of infantrymen disappeared as a result of the German tactic of giving up a pillbox easily, then subjecting it to pre-sighted artillery and mortar fire, forcing the attackers inside for shelter. Then they covered the doorway with fire, blowing it in. The men soon learned it was safer outside the fortifications than inside."
Patton inspected a command pillbox: "It consisted of a three-storey submerged barracks with toilets, shower baths, a hospital, laundry, kitchen, storerooms, and every conceivable convenience plus an enormous telephone installation. Electricity and heat were produced by a pair of diesel engines with generators. Yet the whole offensive capacity of this installation consisted of two