Victory Was Beyond Their Grasp: With the 272nd Volks-Grenadier Division from the Huertgen Forest to the Heart of the Reich by Douglas E. Nash

Author:Douglas E. Nash [Nash, Douglas E.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Casemate
Published: 2015-03-09T04:00:00+00:00

11

The Americans Drive for the Dams

The six-week lull that had settled in the Hürtgen Forest and along the Roer River front finally came to an end when the Americans began their long-anticipated attack on 30 January 1945. With the costly German offensive in the Ardennes defeated and forced back to its original line of departure during the last week of the month, the Allies were once again in the position to reassert the operational initiative. Germany’s strategic and operational reserves were now virtually exhausted and General Dwight Eisenhower, with his armies’ and air forces’ overwhelming numerical superiority, now renewed the Western Allies’ drive toward the Rhine, while Stalin’s Red Army continued its relentless drive toward Berlin.

In order for the Western Allies to reach the Rhine, Eisenhower directed Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery’s 21st Army Group to cross the lower Rhine once the rest of the American, British, and Canadian forces had closed up to that river along a broad front. But before this attack could take place, Montgomery first had to wait until the Roer River dams at Urft and Schwammenauel were taken. This salient fact, which had overshadowed the fighting in the Hürtgen Forest since September 1944, still held true in January 1945. Whichever side held the dams controlled the level of the Roer; any Allied force that crossed the Roer to reach the Rhine could easily be cut off from its logistical tail by the simple expedient of blowing the dams or opening their floodgates.

General Simpson’s US Ninth Army of the 21st Army Group was given the assignment of taking the dams with its southernmost unit, Major General Parker’s 78th Infantry Division, at the time assigned to the US VII Corps. Though a relative newcomer to the Hürtgen Forest compared to the other divisions that had preceded it, nearly two months of combat against the 272nd VGD and other German units had transformed the men of the “Lightning Division” into hardened veterans. The Americans had been bogged down in the Hürtgen Forest for nearly five months and there was a strong belief within the Allied leadership and within the division itself that this final assault had to succeed.

Much depended upon a successful conclusion to an episode that had already claimed thousands of American casualties for an advance of a mere twenty-five miles. With this in mind, the command and staff of the 78th Infantry Division had been occupied throughout much of January in drafting and perfecting their concept of operations. The fighting in the Hürtgen Forest came to an end and the Roer was crossed in less than two weeks, which is a tribute to the skill and abilities of the leaders and the men they led. It was to be hard fighting all the way, however.

Essentially, the fight for the Roer dams would unfold in three distinct phases— clearing the corridor in the south as far as the Urft Dam, then occupying the Schmidt plateau (key terrain overlooking the Schwammenauel Reservoir), and finally the seizure of the larger Schwammenauel Dam to the north.

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