90th Infantry Division History & Research

Divisional History

A History of the 90th Division in World War II

6 June 1944
To
9 May 1945

 


Chapter 10

 

Again The Siegfried

As February arrived the 90th’s Major General James A. Van Fleet moved to a higher command and was succeeded by Major General Lowell H. Rooks.

The early days of February also saw the abrupt departure of winter, and the equally abrupt arrival of the hated enemy of all troops . . . General Mud.  The melting snows developed into countless streams which cascaded from the hills into the Our.  And once more the 90th found it necessary to contend with a river in flood.

The Division now held an 18,000 yard front running northeast from Leiler on the south to Winterspelt on the north.  On the left was the 4th Infantry Division, on the right the 6th Armored.  Enemy opposition consisted chiefly of mortars, nebelwerfers and artillery.  The Germans had seen fit to with draw their e troops when the bulge had flattened and the enemy now comprised units of Volksgrenadiers.  The troops, while not highly trained, nevertheless fought stubbornly now that the fatherland itself was menaced.

Heckluscheid fell on the first day of the month, and now the attack turned its direction again.   Wheeling about almost at right angles, Corps now altered its course and aimed toward the southeast.  New objectives were assigned.  At H-hour, D-Day, the entire Corps would assault the Siegfried Line with the Prum River as its objective.  The 4th Infantry Division would attack toward the town of Prum, while the 90th was to cut through the 4th and take Pronsfeld, southwest of Prum.  Nothing lay between Corps and its objectives but treacherous knee-deep mud, hills, and desperate Wehrmacht anchored securely in the Siegfried Line.

Road beds, reduced to soft muck, collapsed almost immediately under the weight of vehicular traffic.   Trucks and jeeps and tanks and TDs ground impotently in an effort to extricate themselves from the morass in which they were mired, while the mud clung to the hubs and axles with octopus-like tenacity.

Despite such obstacles, operations proceeded as scheduled.  On February 5th the 90th Division opened a demonstration against Habsched and Hollnich.  Vehicles and armor moved freely in the front line area, artillery fired volley after folley into the towns.   Armor of the 712th Tank Battalion fired on pillboxes.  During the hubbub, the 4th Infantry took advantage of the diversion and sliced forward to take Brandsheid its immediate objective just within the Siegfried Line.

February 6th was D-day, and at four in the morning the 359th picked its way undetected through the dragon’s teeth, minefields, barbed wire and pillboxes, the first defenses of the Siegfried Line.  By daylight Habscheid was in the 90th’s hand, and the job of breaching the Siegfried barrier was well begun.  Bypassed pillboxes throughout the day prevented armor and reinforcements from reaching the town, and it was not until a 155mm self-propelled gun poured direct fire into the pillboxes that the enemy defenders began to see the error of their ways and promptly deserted their concrete shelters.

The 358th, in the meantime, was in the process of relieving elements of the 4th Infantry at Brandscheid.  At this most inopportune time a force of 450 Germans supported by three assault guns launched a determined counterattack, which was subsequently repulsed with the capture of 170 of the enemy.   Interrogation of prisoners revealed the enemy intended to hold grimly to its Siegfried fortifications, German’s lat barrier before the Rhine.

The intentions of the Germans, however, failed to coincide with the intentions of the 90th Division.  Through mud and hills they forced their way into the enemy stronghold.  One by one the pillboxes fell before the infantry and the armor.  Working with the systematic precision the men of the 90th forced the boxes, took their prisoners and moved on to the next.  Enemy artillery and “screaming meemies” worked frantically to crush the advance, but the attack was ruthlessly pressed.

Roads were constantly subjected to the interdictory fire, roads which now became rivers of glue and paste.  The Siegfried Line bent slowly before the attacking American troops, bent slowly and cracked.  In four days the 90th had smashed its way forward through the concrete fortifications, through the valleys and over the Eiffel Hills.  In four days the main defensive belt had been pierced, and now only a thin sliver of defenses remained to be destroyed.

On the 12th Prum fell to the 4th Division on the 90th’s left.  Pronsfeld remained in the enemy’s hands, but now a brief halt was called in order that minor predispositions might be made and road conditions improved.   For three days the 90th held defensive positions and watched delighted as the skies cleared and bombers and fighter places raked enemy positions immediately to the front.

The attack was resumed on the 18th with startling initial success.  The enemy was caught literally asleep in his pillboxes.  The 359th Regiment alone bagged a total of 400 prisoners, including one regimental commander and two battalion commanders together with their staffs.  Quantities of valuable maps and documents were likewise taken.  Those Germans not captured awoke in the early hours of morning to find their positions long since bypassed and that they themselves were somewhere in the 90th’s rear echelon.

Kresfeld was soon captured, but now the enemy had been thoroughly altered and responded to the challenge with severe artillery and mortar fire, preventing further advances for the time being.   The following day the advance was resumed.   Mathorn fell immediately, as did Neider—and Ober Uttfeld.  It was not a beaten German army which relinquished these objectives one by one, it was hard-fighting stubborn, slugging army which struck back at every opportunity.  American air superiority was making itself felt, American superiority in equipment was dealing decisive blows, but nevertheless the enemy held fanatically to its ground and retreated only when the strongest persuasive forces was exerted by the doughboys and the tankers of the 90th.

Binscheid was swept up by the advancing 90th Division, as were the towns of Strickscheid and Euscheid.   German defenses were crumbling before the overwhelming power of the90th’s drive.  On the 22nd Task Force Spiess ran roughshod over the lines, capturing four towns, 300 prisoners, and quantities of enemy material.  Holzehen, Arzfeld, Windhausen . . . with increasing impetus the names of German towns were written into the records of places captured by the 90th.  Lichtenborn, protected by five enemy tanks and infantry, was also gathered into the fold.

All along the Division front advances were being made with ever increasing speed.  And now, as the Prum River drew nearer, swift, rapier dashes were made to the river.  An attempt was made to seize intact the bridge at Waxweiler, but no sooner had the west bank been cleared than the bridge was destroyed, making a crossing at the point impracticable at the moment.

And still the Germans were unable to halt the flood of American troops which swept southward and eastward like an avenging avalanche.  Desperately they threw the book at the racing, blitzing Yanks, but the book was not enough.  On the 24th of February the Division had reached its objectives along the Prum River, and paused briefly while a small corner of the zone was cleared.  In two hours four more towns had fallen, and now the 90th halted to draw its breath for its next assignment.

The next assignment was a welcome one to the exhausted troops which had fought without rest from the Bulge in Luxembourg to the soil of Germany itself.  The 90th was placed in Corps reserve, from which it was subsequently removed and placed in SHAEF reserve.  Retiring slightly to the rear of the front lines, living in pyramidal tents and artillery-blasted houses, the men nevertheless accepted the respite from battle gratefully.

The German radio reluctantly announced that the Siegfried Line had been breached.  But the men of the 90th were aware of that.  As they rested they asked themselves briefly, “How many miles to the Rhine?”

 

 

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