Pacifica Military History Free Sample Chapters.pmd

Free Sample Chapters 295
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On February 19, a damaged B-24 heavy bomber came down in a smallish
field south of Rotgen. Those of us at the CP heard the plane go in so I
jumped into my command car with Technician 5th Grade Mike Popp
and rushed to see what was going on. The makeshift landing field, part
of an extensive minefield, was in the zone of Lieutenant Don Davis’s
platoon of Company C. By the time I arrived, the crew of the heavy
bomber was climbing out of the airplane amidst shouted pleas from
Don and his men that they stay put until a safe path through the mines
had been cleared with the aid of mine detectors. The entire fresh-faced
bomber crew—they all looked to be about eighteen years old—
disregarded the instructions and trudged across the muddy field toward
us. When they got to the road, we pointed to the many signs that warned
of the presence of mines in the field, but those cocky boys laughed and
boasted, “If we can crash-land a heavy bomber in a small field like this,
there’s no minefield that can do us in.” With those foolish flyboys looking
on, Davis’s men immediately went to work plucking mines from exactly
the route they had followed from the bomber. When the airmen saw the
mines, they became so agitated that they refused to return to the bomber
to collect their personal effects.
*
By February 22, the flood waters in the Roer valley had receded
sufficiently for Operation GRENADE to commence the next day,
February 23. As planned, the assault began in the north, toward Julich,
in the zone of the 9th U.S. Army’s southernmost XIX Corps. German
air and artillery knocked out the assault bridges in the zone of the 102nd
Infantry Division, but engineers employing a massive smoke screen in
the adjacent 29th Infantry Division zone breached the river. By day’s
end, tanks were advancing into Julich. In the next zone south, elements
of the 30th Infantry Division conducted an assault river crossing in boats,
but no bridges were completed in its zone and, thus, no armor could be
sent to support the bridgehead.
In the northern 1st Army sector, the VII Corps got no bridges across
the Roer on February 23, but, next day, engineers built a Bailey bridge
on the piers of the blown main highway bridge into Düren. This was the