Signal
Corps Successes How
Seven Signal OCS Graduates From Class 42-06 Built The
103rd Infantry Division’s Signal Company
– Part III of IV –
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continuing...
And so it came as no surprise to Captain
Beck when a few days later the reprimand
arrived on his desk. As it turned out,
the action taken against him ended up
being a fine. Even then however, Captain
Beck felt he had been wronged, and asked
to see General McAuliffe.
General McAuliffe listened patiently,
and despite his reputation for being a
no baloney commander, expressed his
sympathy over the predicament Captain
Beck found himself in. Thinking perhaps
that whatever the truth, Captain Beck
had learned a lesson or two about
vehicle maintenance, he had the
reprimand removed from Captain Beck’s
201 file. The fine, however, stayed.
All of these years later, it is
interesting to note that if it were not
for copies of the charges being kept as
part of the personal files and records
that Captain Beck kept for himself, of
his time in the service, no one would
know that this incident occurred.
Apparently, when General McAuliffe
expunged the charges he made absolutely
certain that no records of them existed
in any format, anywhere, in any U.S.
Army records… so that they would not
impact Captain Beck’s career. Searching
for them today, one will find nothing.
As an aside, this act on General
McAuliffe’s part of clearing the records
of any negative reviews relating to the
charges brought against Captain Beck was
part of an approach to Officer
discipline that Omar Bradley required of
his Senior Commanders. Bradley was of the
mindset at the time that very few if any
of the Officers then fighting the war
were fully qualified for the work they
were doing, and as such it was to be
expected that many of them would have to
be disciplined at one time or another,
and that an equal number would even have
to be relieved of duty.
Time and again he made the point to
Eisenhower and others that if an Officer
was derelict in his duty his discipline
should be swift and hard… even to the
point that if the case warranted it then
the Officer should be immediately
relieved of duty. Yet in spite of this
tough approach, he was equally adamant
that everyone involved—from those
disciplining the Officer to those who
served with him and along side of
him—should know and understand that the
discipline being given was for the
purpose of better pursuing the war, not
punishing the Officer.
Thus, if an Officer was relieved of duty
and broken to a lower rank it was not
for the purpose of teaching the man a
lesson, but for the purpose of putting
him into a job that he was qualified to
do, rather than leaving him in one where
he was failing to make the grade.
One byproduct of this was that during
WWII Bradley’s approach resulted in
fellow Officers thinking nothing
negative about an associate that was
relieved of duty or broken in rank.
Instead, they felt that it was good that
their fellow Officer was now in a job he
could do, rather than one where he was
struggling to master his tasks and his
command. They felt
it was best for all concerned, even to
the point that while they prayed that it
did not happen to them, if it did they
figured things
would be just fine, to the point that
they were sure that any discipline they
received
would not impact their career.
An important element of Bradley’s
campaign to relieve underperforming
Officers was
the fact that just as quick as he wanted
his Senior Commanders to be in relieving
Officers who were not performing, he
also wanted them to be equally
as quick in recognize those that did
perform well… even those who had recently been relieved of duty.
The point being, discipline the entire
cadre of the Army Officer corps hard, no
matter what a man's rank... General or
2nd Lieutenant... but do so only for the
purpose of teaching, not punishing. And
when an Officer showed that he had
learned his lesson, or was otherwise
excelling in his new job, promote him...
not necessarily in the sense of
the word "rank", but most
certainly in the sense of giving him more duties and responsibilities,
along with the rank he needed to
exercise those responsibilities.
Thus, Officers who were relieved of
front line combat duty for doing a lousy
job often found themselves being sent to
the rear, or even back to the States,
where they found themselves in logistic
or administrative roles, rather than
positions with combat command responsibility.
In those cases, what they quickly found
was that not only was their having been
relieved of duty not held against them,
but that if they did their new job well
they were quickly promoted back up the
ladder… often ending up being at a
higher position than they had held only
a few months earlier while serving in
the field.
For this Bradley was a genius. History
is replete with stories of both Junior
and Senior Officers who failed in their
job during WWII, were relieved of duty,
disciplined, and then encouraged to rise
to the top one more time… where they
would once again find themselves in
charge of situations far more complex
and hairy than the one(s) that led to
their original demotion... but which
this time they were qualified to handle.
Bradley was
right, the measure of a man is not
whether he succeeds or fails at his job,
but whether his character is such that
he keeps trying, keeps learning, and keeps
applying himself, all the while
maintaining his integrity and a
determination to both serve America well
and succeed.
As we all know, General Patton was one
of the Senior Officers of WWII who
failed at his job, was disciplined,
given a lower level assignment as part
of his re-education, and not only
allowed the chance to rebuild his career
from that rear echelon assignment, but
encouraged to do so… all without any
negative consequence, and most
importantly without being stigmatized by
his fellow Officers. Thank God
that’s the way things worked back then,
because as it turned out, America needed
Patton, just as badly as Patton needed
disciplining.
Compare that if you will to today’s
Army. If General Petraeus was still on
active duty at the time the story broke
of his having given Top Secret
information to his mistress, what would
have happened to his career? In
Bradley’s Army he would have been
relieved of duty and demoted, but he
would have been given the chance to
rebuild that career in short order, and
promoted back up the ranks to a position
of authority and trust, where his
significant skills could continue to
serve America well. Not so today. Today,
if he had not already been retired from
the Army at the time the incident came
to light, he would have been toast.
In our view, the way Omar Bradley
handled Officer discipline during WWII
was far better than the way it is handled today. Bradley focused on
training the Officer—through quick and
harsh discipline—how to do a better job.
In the process he mandated that the
Officer’s personal integrity, reputation
and honor not be impugned or damaged
because of the discipline being handed
out. To Bradley it was all about
producing more capable Officers, by
simply recognizing that many, many
Officers of WWII needed extra help and
guidance if they were to master the
duties they were assigned. Discipline
was merely one more tool that could be
applied to achieve this goal. But it
would not work if in the process an
Officer’s fellow Officers looked down on
him for being relieved of duty.
As regards our Captain Beck from Class
42-06 of Army Signal OCS, it’s to
Captain Beck’s son that we are indebted,
as he is the one who made the records of
his father's discipline public.
And finally, for those who
served in WWII in Europe in the period
following the disciplining or Captain
Beck and found
themselves victims of what seemed to be
an inordinate amount of attention being
paid by Lieutenants and Captains to
vehicle maintenance… now you know where
it all came from. As the winter of
January 1945 turned into
spring and this story made the rounds of
the European Theatre of War, every
walking Junior Officer got the message
that for their own salvation they had
better start focusing on vehicle
maintenance. So thorough was the lesson
learned that within short order the
Army ordered that driver’s names be
placed on the windshields of their
vehicles, and that Junior Officers be
graded on the condition of the vehicles
under their charge.
- - - - -
While vehicle and other logistical
issues continued to keep the men of the
103rd Signal Company on their toes, the
war dragged on.
On January 12, 1945, the 103rd Infantry
Division went on the offensive. As it
turned out, the 411th Infantry Regiment,
part of the 103rd I.D., had attempted to
capture a small patch of high ground
commanding an area in the vicinity of
Sarreguemines. The Germans didn’t take
kindly to their effort and put up a
stiff fight, based in part on the simple
fact that they existed in much greater
numbers in the area than the 411th
Infantry Regiment did. Battered but not
beaten, the 411th was forced to withdraw
from the positions they took, returning
to the lines they held before the
offensive.
During all of this Captain Beck had been
watching the actions of his First
Sergeant, a man named Sweeny. Apparently,
for quite a while Captain Beck had
thought that Sergeant Sweeny was Officer
material, and on the 13th of January,
1945, he acted on it. He granted him a
direct, battlefield commission and then
promoted the man behind him (Sergeant Finkbeiner) up one notch to become the
new First Sergeant for the 103rd Signal
Company.
In those days when an enlisted man was
promoted on the battlefield to Officer
level, he was sent off for a quick
course in what being an Officer was all
about. In the European Theatre of War
what would typically happen was
that the newly commissioned Officer
would be sent behind the lines to Morhange, France, where he would receive
short but intense training on the
subject. Considered part of the
Officer’s Replacement Depot, at Morhange
the men receiving a Battle Field
Commission (BFC) would be given training
on how to command, and brought up to
speed on the details and
responsibilities of their new positions.
Many of those who went through this fast
track training commented afterwards that
they were surprised at the extent of
deference that the military acceded to
Officers as regards comparing an
"Officer and a Gentleman" to an enlisted
man. That is, for the first time they
began to comprehend that which they knew
existed, but did not fully understand.
Reading the writings of many of the men
from that period, one repeatedly finds
comments saying that they could now see
that in addition to competence and the
other factors that Officers are supposed
to have working in their favor,
integrity too plays a big role. They
said that they could now see that
without the entire Officer Corps valuing
personal integrity over personal gain,
when it came to commanding on the
battlefield an Officer could not depend
on the words and actions of another
Officer. That is, if an Officer on the
battlefield solicited, before ordering a
combat action, advice or even just
comment from another Officer, he had to
be absolutely certain that the comments
the other Officer offered were
trustworthy beyond measure. If not, then
there would be no way for those Officers
making strategic and tactical
battlefield decisions to know if they
were doing the right thing or not.
One other result caused by the training
given in the Officer’s Replacement Depot
was an assessment by the former enlisted
men going though it of the value of the
new “Officer value system” that they
were being introduced to. Generally this
took place in the form of a series of
BOQ discussions of the advantages
and disadvantages of being promoted to
Officer level. In particular, they
argued over what it would be like if
they were sent back to their original
unit, and asked to command those they
used to be buddies with. In every case
these new Officers said that if that
happened it would be
tough for them to do their job. In this
one area we can see today the reason why
fraternization with enlisted men is
still verboten in the Army. Recognizing
this, the Army assured that most of the
men given field promotions never made it
back to their old units. Instead they
were reassigned, usually to another
theatre of war.
Finally, while there must have been a
few of the men who passed through the
Officer’s Replacement Depot training
course that regretted their promotion,
in doing our research about the men sent
to Morhange, France, we could not find
one. To a man they all said that they
could not have made a better choice than
accepting their commission. Now, both
they, their life and their career were
“on their way”.
As for the battle the 411th had begun in
an attempt to take ground in the
Sarreguemines area, and which the 103rd
Signal Company supported, the final
stages saw both sides spent. More from
the extreme cold of that particular
winter than anything else, the fact was
that both sides found themselves hoping
for a pause. With resources on both
sides down to a minimum, life became
primitive, with survival becoming the
highest priority.
The German troops were in worse
condition than the Americans, and soon
began to surrender just so that they
could be fed and made warm again. Many
froze where they fell, not even having
the strength to reach the American lines
to surrender. Still, in spite of the
hardships and conditions the men of the
411th fought on, and so did the men of
the 103rd Signal Company. Finally, in
the last few days of January, 1945, the
Americans made their way back to the
advanced positions they had once held.
By the time they did, some 16,000
Americans were KIA, with 60,000 more
wounded or captured. As politically
incorrect as it is to say so today,
fortunately, German casualties were
twice those of the Americans.
Some today say that this small
engagement was the greatest American
battle of World War II. Others claim it
was the most costly battle ever fought
by Americans, in any war. In support of
this, statistics have been published
that say that until the battle at
Sarreguemines, in the Ardennes, the
worst killing field in American history
had been at Gettysburg, with 51,000
casualties being listed on both
sides. Compared to this, in the
Ardennes, American casualties exceeded
76,000, with again, German losses being
twice that, for a total loss on both
sides exceeding 228,000.
Considered
today as part of the bigger Battle of
the Bulge, this small engagement
contributed its dead to the total German
losses of nearly 450,000 men, including
36,000 captives, and the 77,700 battle
casualties the Americans sustained. As
to be expected, the majority of the dead
were infantry men, or "doughs" as the
men of the 103rd called them. American
doughs.
So involved was the American Army
in trying to win this battle that British
Prime Minister Winston Churchill went
out of his way to make sure that all of
Britain knew that if it were not for
America’s aid and these men in
particular, Britain would cease to
exist. He made this point succinctly
when he told the House of Commons that
for every British fatality suffered, 60
to 80 Americans died to protect England.
That, he said, justified calling it “the
greatest American battle of the war and
a total American victory.”
With the Battles for Sarreguemines, the
Ardennes and the Bulge behind them, the
103rd was sent back to fight In Alsace,
to the place they had originally been
pulled out of when the Bulge heated up.
This time they would be tossed into an
operation that started when the 103rd
first left the area, and was still going
on when they returned.
Called Operation Northwind (Northwind),
it covered an area known as
Bitche-Neunhofen, and was designed, by
Hitler himself, to maintain German
possession of the area. Strategically,
the purpose of the operation was to cut
off part of Lieutenant General Jacob L.
Devers' Sixth Army Group in the Vosges
Mountains (in northeastern France), such
that it would “compel Patton to withdraw
the mass of his forces which are now
seeking to relieve Bastogne...” Hitler
felt that if he could turn Operation
Nordwind into a success, “the pressure
on the [German’s] south flank in the
[Battle of the Bulge in the] Ardennes
will relax.”
For Hitler, all of this fighting in the
Ardennes was about trying to find a way
to take the French out of the war. From
his perspective, the unstable Free
French regime, symbolized in the person
of General Charles de Gaulle, would fall
if it suffered the loss of Alsace. In
its place the Communist Resistance might
rise up, and if that happened then it
was possible that the Allied lines of
supply and communication might be
appreciably disrupted. If all of this
could be made to happen, then coupled
with the recent Allied reverses in the
Ardennes, the totality of the losses
might throw the Western Alliance into
chaos… resulting, as Hitler viewed it,
as a possible basis from which the
entire Allied coalition could
disintegrate. And if that happened, then
Germany would win the war.
Eisenhower sensed Hitler’s strategy and
worried as to whether General Devers
would be able to hold his 200-mile long
front line… a line that now stretched
from Basel, Switzerland, to the Saar.
From a fighting strength capability
standpoint, Eisenhower knew something
that few others did. And that was that
while the U.S. First Army now had a
frontage of about 5 miles per
Division, General Devers was covering
his sector in Eastern France with one Division
for every 15 miles.
After much back and forth between Ike
and Devers, including strong words and
raised voices, Ike
told Devers that "On no account
[was he to] permit formations [in the deep Lauterbourg salient,
that could be] ...cut off and
surrounded".
To avoid this, Eisenhower decided it would be
better to surrender the land in Alsace
to the Germans, rather than fight for it
and therein reduce the number of
men he had available to
consolidate his gains in the Battle of
the Bulge and Ardennes forest. From his
perspective, while he did not like
conceding territory to the Germans, the
area in Alsace was of little military
importance. In the end, he
determined not to get too embroiled in
the Alsace sector, and issued orders
accordingly.
On a practical basis this meant that
General Devers would have to pull his
men out of the salient he had been
fighting in. This in turn meant that the
Germans would be permitted to occupy
Strasbourg, for a time… unless the
French were willing to fight on their
own in order to keep free their own national terrain.
When this was told to them an immediate
stir ran through the French camp.
Instantly de Gaulle embarked for
Eisenhower's headquarters at Versailles,
which was exactly what Hitler had been
hoping for. So too did Prime Minister
Winston Churchill, accompanying de
Gaulle more in the role of a mediator
than anything else. When they arrived,
Ike got straight to the point,
explaining that he needed his men to
shore up his advances in the Ardennes,
and could not send them into a fight to
hold territory of little more than
emotional value to the French. He
reminded them that he had previously
warned all concerned that if they did
not pay attention to the sore spot
called the Colmar Pocket (see our story
of the Colmar Pocket in
Part II of this
series), and consolidate their gains
there, they would find themselves at
risk of losing Alsace and Strasbourg.
Well… they did not pay attention to the
Colmar Pocket, and now it was happening,
and he was not going to jeopardize his
gains in the Ardennes for French
feelings. In typically American English,
Eisenhower insinuated to de Gaulle that
the French had dropped the ball in
reducing the German salient there, and
were now paying the price.
Notwithstanding his frustration with his
Allies' intransigence and failure to act, Eisenhower recognized that he
could not let the alliance break up over
this incident, as Hitler undoubtedly
wished would happen. So, shortly after
the meeting was over he telephoned
General Devers and ordered that the
withdrawal from the salient be
immediately canceled. The U.S. VI Corps
would hold onto Strasbourg. De Gaulle
had won.
To help assuage Eisenhower’s feelings,
in early January General Devers moved
the boundaries of the U.S. Seventh Army,
and the French First Army, to make the
French responsible for the defense of
Strasbourg.
Not surprisingly, with all of this too
and fro going on, the 103rd found itself
being pulled hither and yon. On January
19, 1945, they found themselves back in
action on the extreme right of the 6th
Corps, in the vicinity of Haguenau.
There in the biting cold they fought one
of the most bitter battles of the
winter. An attack by the 411th Regiment
on the town of Sessenheim, an attempt to
pre-empt the pressure of a strong German
force, found itself being countered by
even heavier pressure from the Germans.
As the battle raged on, it became clear
that the Germans had a far superior
force, with infantry, tanks, self
propelled weapons and “flack” wagons all
at the ready. As the men of the 103rd
entered the town, they found themselves
first facing only moderate resistance,
and then without notice facing a very
strong counter attack. So strong was the
counter attack that the men of the 103rd
were driven all the way back to the
rear, where their support troops were
stationed.
Overall, the men griped that because of
top-level confusion and misunderstanding
as to the strength of the enemy, and a
failure to comprehend what the overall
tactical goals were that were driving
the Germans to fight, the 103rd—and
especially its Signal Company— was being
placed in untenable positions from which
more often than not they were being
forced to retreat, in terrible weather,
at great losses.
Hearing the griping, the 103rd’s
Commanders cobbled together a new line
of resistance. Established along the
south bank of the Rothbach and Moder
Rivers, between the village of Rothbach
and the town of Pfaffenhoffen, the line
was intended to help the unit disengage
from the enemy until German intentions
could be better ascertained. This line
sufficed for only a day or two before a
strategic withdrawal was mandated by the
higher echelons at VI Corp and Seventh
Army headquarters.
On the night of January 21, in a
blinding snowstorm, the men withdrew.
Surprisingly, as much as they grumbled
about lack of a cohesive strategy to
take on the Germans, they now grumbled
even louder about their withdrawal. The
reason was that from the G.I.’s
perspective they were abandoning the
members of the resistance, the Force
Francaise Interieur (FFI), which
they had been fighting alongside of. The
FFI would now be left to its own
defenses, and with most of them having
families in the towns that we were be
vacated, the withdrawing forces feared
that the Germans would massacre all of
those left behind. Adding insult to this
injury, the men were convinced even as
they withdrew that the entire exercise
was for naught, as they would only be
back in a few days to fight for and
retake the very same ground they were
now willfully abandoning.
As to be expected, the 103rd Signal
Company’s radio units and wire teams
were intermixed with the infantry
troops, tanks, artillery gun carriages,
AA guns, trucks, and other paraphernalia
that was being pulled out, with the net
result that the withdrawal was a messy
one. Much of the time was spent by the
men not in their vehicles, but out of
them… trying both to police up wire as
they retreated, lay new wire in front of
the retreating troops, and guide their
own slipping and sliding vehicles around
the mass of humanity fleeing the area.
Eventually the Allies prevailed, and in
the aftermath of the battles in the
Schillerdorf area, things settled down
for the winter. On both sides, troops
settled in for a long, wintry wait,
preparing for what they knew would be a
tough spring offensive. For their part,
the Germans pulled back from their
recent gains to what were more
defensible positions, seemingly willing
to hole up for the winter, rather than
attack.
The Allies too, along the entire Western
Front—as well as the Russians, along
their own front—now set about
straightening their lines and preparing
their forces for a massive push into the
heart of Germany.
As January morphed into February and the
Officers of the 103rd Signal Company
focused on routine duties to prepare for
the spring offensive, Captain Beck took
time out of his work to write of his
feelings of war. In one passage he
tellingly showed the impact of combat on
a man’s soul. In it he said “I know very
well that wounds and injuries are a
daily occurrence. But, when it happens
to a close friend or relative, it takes
on a different aspect. To see a dead
soldier, who is an American, on a
battlefield leaves me rather
squeamish. When I see that he is wearing
the same uniform as I, with its familiar
G.I. articles, I feel as if I know
him. I have seen many dead
Germans. Their appearance, no matter how
emaciated or ghoulish, caused no special
emotion within. They were like a wrecked
vehicle or artillery piece. Inorganic,
immaterial.”
This dissociative ability to build a
wall between one form of humanity… those
men with whom you fight, versus those
against whom you fight… is typical of
combat. Today we see this as one of the
elements that leads to PTSD. To see a
human being dead, on the ground, and
feel empathy for only those who are
dressed in your uniform is typical of
war. It’s what makes wars winnable, for
if every soldier saw the enemy with the
same empathy and passion as he does his
own comrades, no man could kill another.
Another thing about being at war… real
war… struck Captain Beck as unusual. In
March, 1945, he wrote that his Company
was spread along a 50 mile front, from
end to end. As he thought of what it
took to logistically support his unit,
and coordinate command and control over
his men, it struck him that “More and
more I now realize that everything we
did back in the States was [just] so
much practice. It was all make believe
there, and here it is for keeps. No
matter what we do I always have that
feeling that it's for real. No matter
how insignificant the duty, a mistake
just cannot be made. After a fashion, it
becomes habit forming to do things and
make them count.”
One can see from this that his earlier
reprimand regarding vehicle maintenance
had taken root… he now knew how critical
it was for a unit to be in top
condition, full fighting form, ready for
anything. All those days in America were
just a joke compared to this; this was
for real.
In February Allied military leaders held
a conference to discuss and agree on the
final strategic moves that would be
necessary to connect the Allied forces
approaching from the western and eastern
fronts, so that victory could be
assured. Looking at a map of the Allied
front as of February 8, 1945, one can
see that the actions that were planned
for the spring would take place to the
north of the 103rd Infantry Division’s
then present position west of
Strasbourg. Timing wise, it appeared
that several different phases of the war
would be run, suggesting a sequence of
assaults would be mounted, starting near
the northern limits of the Allied front
and moving southward toward the 6th Army
Group, eventually ending up in the 103rd
Infantry Division's field of battle,
at the lower end of the Allied front.
One senses from this that the tactical
judgment was to concentrate maximum
support elements of the various
operations behind a concentrated push
toward the Rhine river, and the German
border.
As to how strong the Allied position
was, by the end of February 1945 an
overwhelming Allied force was pressing
hard against the German border.
4,000,000 men, most of them Americans,
were massed into seven field armies
composed of 53 infantry and 20 armored
divisions, supported by more than 17,500
combat airplanes. The shattered
Siegfried line lay behind them. The last
defensive barrier, the rain swollen
Rhine river, lay ahead of them. Within
this whole collection of men and
material lay the 103rd Signal Company,
out there in a defensive position on the
front line of their sector, watching and
waiting for any sign of a German probing
attack.
- - - - -
And so for a while all was quiet, as the
men along the western front waited for
spring to come and an offensive to
start. Yet that was not what Eisenhower
had in mind. Spring hell… there was a
war to be fought, and while he would
allow a few weeks for units to
reassemble and reequip themselves, he
intended to mount an offensive as fast
as he could.
What Eisenhower saw that few others saw
was that, based on the results of the
Battle of the Bulge, the Germans were no
longer in any condition to defend
against an Allied assault, especially
one that covered a broad front. In
speaking of this to Churchill, Churchill
agreed, even liking the idea of a broad
front assault of the kind Eisenhower had
in mind. Then the Russians did something
that threw everything out of kilter:
they began to advance towards Berlin.
When Churchill saw this he panicked, as
if the Russians made rapid advances
toward the west and Berlin, and defeated
the Germans before the British could,
there would be hell to pay for decades
after the war was over… with the British
having to constantly check Stalin’s goal
of subsuming Eastern Europe and making
it part of his
empire. With this in mind, Churchill and
the British Military Staff began to
lobby Eisenhower to change his broad
front advance to a single, strong thrust
advance that targeted the heart of
Germany and Berlin.
Hoping to gain a stronger position for
post-war control over the divvying up of
the spoils, Churchill pushed Ike to
accept Montgomery, not Bradley, as the
leader of this newly planned assault.
This in spite of the fact that the
majority of the troops involved would be
American. As we all know today, both
tactically and politically, this
suggestion was not acceptable… not to
Marshall, Eisenhower or any of America’s
civilian or political leaders.
From a tactical perspective alone, Ike
estimated that Montgomery's 21st Army
Group, located on the northern edge of
the Allied front, would find itself
moving through excessively poor tank
terrain, mostly composed of a low,
marshy plains crisscrossed with streams
and canals. As far as he was concerned,
mounting an offensive from this area,
aiming to take Berlin, could cost as
many as 100,000 casualties. For that
reason alone, Monty was out… although
Bradley, never one to miss a chance to
add humor to a tactical decision, opined
that doing what the British wanted would
be "a pretty stiff price to pay for a
prestige objective", in other words,
it was too stiff a price to pay just to
put a peacock feather in Montgomery’s
cap by letting him lead the invasion.
To test the idea that a single, strong
thrust advance was doable, Eisenhower
tasked Patton with trying to sneak
across the Rhine in small units.
Believing that the German defensive
forces were breaking into separate units
and regiments, and moving back across
the Rhine in order to not be trapped by
the advancing Allies, Ike thought he saw
a chance to strike while the Germans
were disorganized and not yet fully
assembled into a strongly entrenched
line of resistance on the eastern side
of the Rhine.
Patton took to Ike’s plan like a fish to
water. On the 25th of March he sent elements of his 5th Army
to test a Rhine crossing via small
boats, in an area about 70 miles south
of the Remagen riverhead. His plan
succeeded, costing him 8 dead and 20
wounded. In just such an instant, Patton
made history by being the first to mount
a successful amphibious crossing of the
Rhine since Napoleon. More importantly,
he gave the Allies a second, solid
foothold on the other side of the Rhine.
Years later this exercise became known
as Patton's "bridging and crossing"
operation. As it stood at the time,
after the completion of the Battle in
The Ardennes, Patton and his Army turned
to the south and east attacking toward
the Rhine. Without the luck of the 9th
Armored Division, further to the north,
who were able to capture the only intact
bridge across the Rhine at Remagen,
Patton's Third Army faced the necessity
of bridging the river on their own, with
their own resources.
Up to that time there had been a total
of 22 road and 25 railroad bridges
spanning the Rhine, into Germany, but
only one was left standing... the bridge
at Remagen. The Germans had successfully
destroyed all of the rest, making it
necessary for Patton to find another way
to cross the river.
In a special order
to his men issued after they had
successfully mounted their first
bridging and crossing operation, Patton
stated that in just the past three
months (from late January to late
March, 1945), "you have taken over 6,400
square miles of territory, seized over
3,000 cities, towns and villages
including Trier, Koblenz, Bingen, Worms,
Mainz, Kaiserslautern, and Ludwigshafen.
You have captured over 140,000 soldiers,
killed or wounded an additional 100,000
while eliminating the German 1st and 7th
Armies. Using speed and audacity on the
ground with support from peerless
fighter-bombers in the air, you kept up
a relentless round-the-clock attack on
the enemy. Your assault over the Rhine
at 2200 last night assures you of even
greater glory to come."[1]
In other areas, as the month of March
rolled on, the Allies found
themselves with three Allied armies
ready to mount a drive into the heart of
Germany. As to where to go once they
entered Germany, while Berlin was not
considered a major tactical goal by most
of the SHAEF staff, everyone
nevertheless realized that with the
Russians only 50 miles from Berlin,
either the Allies had to get a move on
to get there first, or they would have
to concede the territory to the
Russians.
While today we wish they had gotten a
move on, the truth is that at the time
a) it was unlikely that a force from the
west could have covered the ground
necessary in the time allotted to beat
the Russians to Berlin, and b) while few knew
it, Berlin had already been designated as
a zone that would be deep within the
Russian post-war zone of occupation.
That being the case, even if the
British, American and French forces made
a dash for Berlin, they would only have
to withdraw once they got there. For the
moment then, even though there were
disagreements within the western Allies
over the policy of letting the Russians
have Berlin, it was thought best to
focus on defeating the Germans, not the
Russians.
With this in mind Ike went back to his
favored strategy of a broad front
advance. In early March, 1945, he put
his plan in action, ordering that his
forces move eastward toward Germany,
cross the Rhine river, and then move
northward toward Denmark, in order to
avoid colliding with the Russians near
Berlin. In the area of our interest,
toward the southern part of Germany,
where the 103rd Signal Company was
working, the plan was to direct this
“southern front” advance south, towards
southern Germany and Austria.
On March 15, 1945, The 7th Army started
an offensive attack of almost continuous
action, one which began then and did not
stop until the war in Europe was over.
In preparation for this the 103rd
Infantry Division Command Post was
located in Imbsheim, France, from
mid-February to mid-March. This made it
relatively easy for the 103rd Signal
Company to provide effective
communications for Division HQ, as the installation
the unit occupied was the same one they
had occupied before being pulled out and
sent to help attack the Siegfried Line,
and support Patton’s efforts in the
Battle of the Bulge.
A Company Report from that time says
that…
“In addition to normal operating
functions, technical training was
carried on throughout the month by the
various communication sections as
follows:
“a. Wire Section: Each wire crew was
taken individually and given on the job
instruction in the installation and
maintenance of spiral four cable, and
also further instruction and practice in
the installation and maintenance of open
wire construction.
“b. Telephone and Telegraph Section: A
switch was installed at Bouxwiller and
one trunk to each regiment terminated at
this point. This added additional
facilities for training operators. The
section installed a telegraph net to
include the Division Command Post, Rear
Echelon, and the three Infantry
Regiments. In addition to the above, the
section conducted traffic surveys,
signal security surveys, and an
intensive education campaign in
telephone discipline.
“c. Radio Section: In addition to the
normal functions of operating the
Division Command Net and the Corps Net,
this section operated the telegraph net
installed by the telephone and telegraph
section for further code training of
radio operators. Dummy traffic was
transmitted continuously over this net;
seventy-five (75) percent of this
traffic was encoded in M-209, thereby
providing additional training for code
personnel; fifteen (15) percent in
AFCODE; ten (10) percent in clear.
“d. Message Center Section: Training in
the duties and responsibilities of
dismounted messengers was conducted in
this section for recently added
personnel.”
While the Allies were preparing to
launch their offensive, the Germans were
preparing their own defenses. Known for
their engineering prowess, the Germans
were no fools. They calculated and
prepared fields of fire and sighted-in
predetermined settings for their
artillery, so that specific road
junctions, stream crossings, terrain
markers, and more could each be defended
to the best possible advantage. As
anyone who has sat on a Signal Site in
Vietnam and watched Charlie beat himself
senseless throwing men at the perimeter
knows, troops in defense have a great
advantage after a long period of time in
preparation for an attack. Done right,
and considering the weapons of the time,
defense can be much easier to mount
effectively than offensive.
On March 15th things began in earnest.
The time for preparation was over. It
was now time to take it to the Krauts.
On March 15th the entire American Army
opened up a huge attack along the full
length of the western front. From where the 103rd Signal
Company was the men noted that for hours
and hours U.S. artillery pounded German positions. When Arty fire slowed,
the men were ordered to move out and lay
wire into the town of Nieffern. One of
the Signaleers of the 103rd Signal
Company, a man named Tom Brown, noted in
his memoires that “Just before the
entrance to the town we encountered a
blown out bridge which the engineers
were in the process of replacing. There
was a traffic jam of vehicles waiting
for the engineers to finish, and every
so often the Germans would shell us with
88's.”
“It was a ticklish situation" he
continued, "made more
dangerous by the trees that lined both
sides of the road, which caused tree
bursts when the shells hit them and
showered shrapnel downward making
shelter in the ditch no shelter at all.
“We were lying in the ditch beside the
road. Some GI's argued that in standing
up we would make smaller targets for
tree burst shrapnel raining downward on
us. But others said no, that sometimes
the shells came in without hitting the
trees and exploded on the ground, which
made a person standing up a more likely
victim. So it was damm [sic] if we did
and damm [sic] if we didn't.
“To our relief our Sergeant Lee came up and
ordered us out of there and to go back
when the bridge was completed. It made
sense to me!
“After about an hour or so
we went back. I found the place in the
ditch where I had been lying and there
was an American helmet all bloody with a
shrapnel hole in it and some bits of
brains in the helmet liner. Some poor
guy had taken my place when I left and
had gotten killed.
“The town of Nieffern was the most
destroyed town I have ever seen. The
entire town was nothing but rubble.”[2]
By the end of March the men were well
aware that this offensive would not stop
until Germany was defeated. For all of
them, this was a period of high
adventure and drama far more intense
than what they had seen to date. With
little concern, the German forces fought
back as though nothing had happened. In
the process, the daily battles created
chaotic conditions, with “destruction,
pain, suffering, death, injuries to men
and animals” all around. Some of the men
commented that their encounters “were
almost exactly [as they would imagine
the] experiences [were of men who
fought in] World War One or possibly the
Civil War.”
On one particularly hot day, as one wire
team from the 103rd Signal Company
continued to lay cable, the men came
across the remnants of “a retreating
horse drawn artillery battalion [that
the Infantry] had scattered and
destroyed [in] a moving action through a
beautiful river valley where the road
was just a little higher than a broad
meadow and a stream that ran through
it."
“The German unit was composed of about
600 men, 100 wagons, several hundred
horses and many horse drawn canons. The
wagons were all kinds, flat beds, water
wagons, covered wagons, etc.
“They carried everything needed for a
self sustaining artillery
battalion—food, ammunition, repair
parts, hay, blacksmith, wagon repair,
and covered wagons emblazoned with red
crosses for ambulances.
“One of these ambulance wagons was at
the rear of the column that had been
overrun and so it was one of the first
that we saw. It had apparently been
attacked and hit by an advancing tank's
cannon.
“The wagon was broken and collapsed in
its middle with medical equipment
scattered about and mixed in with the
remains of several horses and men with
their personal equipment. It was a very
gory scene but so unusual and surprising
because this may have been the first
time we had seen such outdated
equipment, all of which was so well
maintained.
“The ambulance was out in open country
away from the river valley. That made it
much more startling and dramatic. In
addition to that, the fact that the
Germans were still using almost the same
horse-drawn units that had been common
in WWl was a surprise to us.
“When we moved on up into the valley, we
could see the terrible results of the
task force overtaking the horse drawn
equipment.
“Apparently one of the leading elements
of the attack was a tank with a
bulldozer blade attached that had been
able to push most of the equipment,
wagons, horses, men and other debris off
the road and into the meadow so that our
advancing vehicles and equipment could
get past. The valley by the side of the
road was full of equipment, guns,
supplies and horses some of whom were
moving about apparently unhurt, but many
were dead or dying.
“We slowly moved past, mile after mile,
of this awful destruction until we were
almost in the town at the upper end of
the valley, Klingenmunster. There in the
road was a Sherman Tank that had been
painted white for fighting in the snow
and in spite of a previous period of
warm weather and relative combat
inactivity, had not been repainted to be
less conspicuous. It had been hit by a
German Panzerfaust (Bazooka-like
anti-tank weapon) and had one of its
tracks blown off and was disabled. The
tank was partially burned from the
explosion. The crew, in attempting to
escape, had been killed. They were
draped on the turret or lying near the
tank on the road. There had not been an
opportunity yet to carry them away.”[3]
As March gave way to April, while the
war continued the pace of retreat of the
Germans picked up. The Allies clearly
had the Germans on the run. Even the
Signaleers of the 103rd could see this,
as their efforts to lay double wires
along roadways proved too slow to keep
up with the ever advancing Infantry
boys. To try to make things better and
keep a line of communication operating
to the very front of the advancing
Infantry, the Signal men switched to
laying single wire. Even then however
they found that they still could not
keep up, and so the time length for work
details was lengthened. For many of the men, work
during this period meant going
for 48 straight hours, without rest,
just to “get the lines in”.
- - - - -
Next month we bring this story of
the 103rd Signal Company to a close,
concluding Part IV in this series. In it
we will see how, as the war drew to a
close, the unit made a
transition from front line fighting and
combat to
serving as an occupation force. Of
interest will be their encounter with the worst of WWII,
as they
surveyed the occupation and death camps
of the Third Reich.
Join us then, and read again of the
remarkable exploits of the U.S. Army
Signal Corps and the 7 exceptional
Officers who graduated Army Signal OCS
Class 42-06.
Footnotes
[1] From the After Action Report for Patton's first bridging and
crossing operation, Third U.S. Army, page 313.
- To return to your place
in the text, click
here.
[2] From the memoires and recollections of Tom Brown,
Sergeant of one of the wire teams of the 103rd Signal
Company. Tom Brown noted in an online blog in 1993 that after discharge he “went
back to the Telephone Company. I took flying lessons (had an
engine failure in my first hour of solo and had to make a
forced landing) and got my commercial license.
“I changed my work hours and went to
school in the daytime. I graduated in 4
years 8 months, worked a full time
job. I quit the telephone company and
took a job with Motorola as a Sales
Engineer selling two-way radios. I
already had my "ham" license (W4NLI) I
got my First Class Radiotelephone
license.
“I was promoted to Zone Manager, then Account Executive,
then Account Executive Manager. In Bergen County, New
Jersey, I started back to school and got my MBA (cum laude
no less), then entered the New York University Graduate
School of Business Phd program for two years. “ We have five
children, four boys and a girl. We have college educated all
five with two lawyers, a Mechanical Engineer, a CPA, and
(the girl) a graphic designer.
“I learned of a management consultant franchise for sale in
Tennessee and bought it, and moved the family to Nashville
in 1968. My wife, Priscilla, and I run this business,
Capital Business Services, together. We computerized in 1973
and are very computer literate, owning six computers to do
our work. I have also written some of my own
programs.” - To return to your place
in the text, click
here.
[3] Gathered from an online blog
expressing the memoires and
recollections of Eugene Jones, Sergeant
of one of the wire teams of the 103rd
Signal Company. Little is known of
Sergeant Jones except that he came from
Texas. - To return to your place
in the text, click
here.
Reference Sources
Various comments on the Battle for Sarreguemines,
the Ardennes, and the Battle of the Bulge taken from
Fighting in the Val de Moder; Lise M. Pommois, Association
Les Amis de la Libération de Pfaffenhoffen; C. Delbecq, 1989
- Alsace (France).
Many of the comments and quotes in this
series, and especially in this article, were taken from the excellent book
entitled 103d Infantry
Division Signal Company Remembrances; 1918 – 1945,
by William F. Barclay. Some portions of
the text in this article are a literal
rewrite of a few parahraphs of that
book. The text of the book is currently in the process of being placed
online, and is available in partial form at this
link.
Of note, text and
pictures are being added to the online version by the son of
Captain Beck. We have depended heavily in our quoting the
writings of Captain Beck, and in using
his observations to add color to this
story, on information contained in this
book, which information most certainly
must have come from Captain Beck's son
Andy Beck. Our expressed gratitude for
his having provided it for inclusion in
the 103d Infantry
Division Signal Company Remembrances;
1918 – 1945,
and for the chance to quote from it
here.
In addition to the above, generally, quotations shown, unless otherwise
identified, were excerpted and extracted
from 103d Infantry
Division Signal Company Remembrances; 1918 – 1945,
by William F. Barclay. However, because
of the extensive use of said
book as source material for other
deep web sources, from which we in turn
extracted data for use here, we can not
say with certainty that the material
used here originally came from said
book. Notwithstanding this, the nature
of the quotations and stories appearing
in such deep web sources leads us to
believe that it was originally sourced from
Mr. Barclay's book, and accordingly we
wish to provide credit here.
Pictures from various online sources.
When shown without identification, no
identifying source was able to be found.
The Patriot Files; dedicated to
the preservation of military history;
www.patriotfiles.com.
Generally, map graphics and references courtesy
www.103rdcactus.com.
Papa's War, Evans, Pierce;
Limited Publication, 1995; various
online sources.
Report After Action: The Story of
the 103rd Infantry Division;
Mueller, Ralph; Turk, Jerry; Printing
Office, Innsbruck, Austria.
Index of /Sexton/103rd; deep
web sourcing.
103D Infantry Division Signal
Company History, online as a
Pierce-Evans.org project.
103rd Infantry Division,
Wartime Press.
Miscellaneous fact checking: The Patriot
Files; an online resource dedicated to
the preservation of military history.
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