Armee was to be sacrificed when at last, on 23 March, authority came to cross the Rhine. Finally it crossed the Brenner Pass and made contact with the US Fifth Army at Vipiteno, Italy. Anticipating early completion of operations to clear the west bank of the Rhine north of the Moselle, General Dwight D. Eisenhower on 13 February 1945 had told his two American army group commanders—Generals Omar Bradley and Jacob L. Devers—to begin planning for a joint drive to sweep the Saar-Palatinate. The 3d Algerian Division meanwhile got across the Moder with little enough trouble but then encountered intense house-to-house fighting. The 103rd Infantry Division ("Cactus Division" ) was a unit of the United States Army which served in the U.S. Patton was to command the Seventh Army until early 1944. There, General Petersen′s XC Korps was charged with holding the fortifications and denying access to the flatlands along the Rhine. Then an infantry battalion of the 17th SS Panzergrenadierdivision, supported by nine assault guns, struck back. Perhaps aided by the fact that they had done the same job before in December, they gained dominating positions on the fortified hills around the town, leaving no doubt that they would clear the entire objective in short order the next day, 16 March. Volksgrenadierdivision to the 7. Once Kaiserslautern fell, the only routes of withdrawal left to those troops led through the Haardt Mountains south of Kaiserslautern. Although a company of supporting tanks ran into a dense minefield, disabling four tanks and stopping the others, a battalion of the 7th Infantry fought its way into the village of Uttweiler, just across the German frontier. The 12th Army Group (i.e., the 3rd Army), he also noted, was to be limited to diversionary attacks across the Moselle to protect the 6th Army Group′s left flank. Making the army′s main effort in the center, General Haislip′s XV Corps faced what looked like a particularly troublesome obstacle in the town of Bitche. The XV Corps (Maj. Gen. Wade H. Haislip) had joined the 7th Army after fighting across France with the 3rd Army. At Saarbrücken, the left wing of von Lüttwitz’s LXXXV Corps faced only part of Milburn’s XXI Corps. By the fall of night on 22 March the Germans on the western side of the Rhine river could measure the time left to them in hours. Major General Edward H. Brooks’s VI Corps, for example, had fought for some time in the Italian campaign, and its three divisions (Major General John W. O’Daniel’s 3rd Division, Brigadier General Robert I. Stack’s 36th Division and Major General Robert T. Frederick’s 45th Division) were equally experienced. That was attributable in part to a campaign of interdiction for several days preceding the attack by planes of the XII Tactical Air Command (Brig. "Tremendous losses in both men and matériel," noted the chief of staff of the 1. The subsequent French advance pushed through the Bienwald, a large forested expanse just north of the Lauter through which bunkers, trenches, and other obstacles of the West Wall were emplaced. Two days later the XII and XX Corps had passed five divisions over the Rhine river and were developing their advance toward Aschaffenburg and Hanau. The German tactical problems were compounded by an acute shortage of vehicle fuel, and as a result the two roads were soon clogged by abandoned, damaged or wrecked vehicles, guns, and equipment. Since almost everybody, including the troops of the motorised 17th SS Panzergrenadierdivision, had to use either the main east/west highway through the forest or the secondary road close behind the ‘Siegfried-Linie’, US fighter-bomber pilots had only to aim their weapons in the general direction of those roads to be assured of hitting some target. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish. The 3rd Army estimated that the German units opposing its advance lost approximately 113,000 men, including prisoners, while the 3rd Army′s casualties totaled 5,220, including 681 killed. On the corps left wing, the 42nd Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Harry J. Collins) overcame the added obstacle of attacking along the spine of the Lower Vosges by avoiding the roads and villages in the valleys and following the crests of the high ground. By the fall of night on 20 March, two of the 10th Armored Division’s columns were just a few hundreds of yards from the main highway through the forest, one almost at Pirmasens on the western edge and the other not far from the eastern edge. Armee commander, General Foertsch. Yet just as had been the case in the zones of the XXI Corps and the XV Corps, it was less the hard fighting of the VI Corps that would determine when the West Wall would be pierced than it was the rampaging thrusts of the 3rd Army′s XX Corps in the German rear. Over the remaining bridge, at Germersheim, roughly east of Landau, as many vehicles and field pieces as could be salvaged began to pass during the night of the 22nd. In a lead role in Operation Undertone, its Seventh Army fought its way across the Rhine into Germany, captured Nuremberg and then Munich. All along the Mosel, from Koblenz to Trier, the German 7. SS Panzergrenadierdivision, had to use either the main east-west highway through the forest or the secondary road close behind the West Wall, American fighter pilots had only to aim their bombs, their cannon, and their machine guns in the general direction of those roads to be assured of hitting some target. As night fell the 45th Division had driven almost 3 miles (4.8 km) beyond the Blies river to match a rate of advance that was general everywhere except in the fortified belt near Saarbrücken and on the flat land near the Rhine river. Although all of the VI Corps’ divisions achieved clear breakthroughs on 23 March, they came into contact only with rearguards and failed to exercise any material effect of the German retreat across the Rhine river. As events developed, no formal order to pull back into the fortifications ever emerged above corps level. The American main effort thus aimed at the stronger German units, though at this stage of the war strength in regard to German divisions was but a relative term. Formal German evacuation of the west bank ended during the night of the 24th, while American units continued to mop up rear guards and stragglers through the 25th. Although corps commanders had begged to be allowed to withdraw into the West Wall even before the American offensive began, General Foertsch at 1. In a lead role in Operation Undertone launched March 15, the Seventh Army fought its way across the Rhine into Germany, capturing Nurenberg and then Munich. White, who had held a similar post under Patch on Guadalcanal. Over the remaining bridge, at Germersheim, to the east of Landau, as many vehicles and field pieces as could be salvaged began to pass during the night of 22/23 March. The fact that the 63rd Division early hit the West Wall provided ready explanation for the stanch opposition there. The adjustment meant that the West Wall assault by the four American divisions of the VI Corps was to be concentrated in a zone less than twenty miles wide. Even though it seemed that the Germans were pulling back in accord with a predetermined plan, they were in fact intending a deliberate defence. The best of the German divisions were Generalleutnant Willibald Utz’s 2nd Gebirgsdivision and SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS Karl Heinrich Brenner’s 6th SS Gebirgsdivision ‘Nord’. Operation Undertone was a large assault by the U.S. In addition to two Volksgrenadier divisions, Simon's corps had the 17th SS Panzergrenadierdivision, at this point not much more than a proud name, but a unit possessing considerably more tanks and other armored vehicles than were to be found in the entire adjacent corps. Of the units of the outsized (six divisions) XV Corps, only a regiment of the 45th Division (Maj. Gen. Robert T. Frederick) faced a water obstacle at the start. In a lead role in Operation Undertone launched 15 March, the Seventh Army fought its way across the Rhine into Germany, capturing Nuremberg and then Munich. Although the Germans were more concerned with the possibility of a US breakthrough in the XC Corps’ sector into the Wissembourg gap than with a breakthrough of Simon’s XIII SS Corps into the Kaiserslautern corridor, the redispositions of the preceding weeks to salvage reinforcements for the 7th Army had in fact strengthened the XIII SS Corps. Foertsch’s plan was posited on his belief that the main threat to the Kaiserslautern gap would emerge from the west or south-west, whereas in fact it developed from the north-west, where the XX Corps was streaming through Hahm’s LXXXII Corps. As speed was imperative, the men had to move by day as well as by night, and were thus horribly vulnerable to detection and therefore attack from the air. Armee. In this plan three corps were to attack abreast of each other from Saarbrücken toward a point to the south-east of Hagenau. As night fell, no Algerian unit had advanced more than a mile. Although corps commanders had requested authorisation to withdraw into the ‘Siegfried-Linie’ defences even before the start of ‘Undertone’, Foertsch and Hausser had refused. It is impossible to ascertain how many Germans escaped from the Saar-Palatinate triangle, or how much in the way of weapons, equipment and other matériel they managed to take with them. The 824th Tank Destroyer Battalion was a tank destroyer battalion of the United States Army active during the Second World War. Both armored divisions early on 24 March sent task forces in quest of the lone remaining Rhine bridge, the one at Germersheim, but neither had reached the fringes of the town when at 10:20 the Germans blew up the prize. Armee clearly was but a question of time. In fact no order to pull back into the fortifications ever emerged above corps level. Thousands of released slave laborers and German soldiers who had changed into civilian clothes complicated the issue for military government officials. Southeast of the town, with boundaries roughly coterminous with those of Haislip′s XV Corps, stood the XIII SS Korps (SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS Max Simon) with three divisions. SS Panzergrenadierdivision, supported by nine assault guns, struck back. Eisenhower additionally noted that the 12th Army Group, in the form of the 3rd Army, would be limited to diversionary attacks across the Mosel river to provide northern flank protection for the 7th Army. Two German corps and part of a third were in the path of the impending American drive. Having recently given up the 559. The men knocked out four multiple-barrel 20 mm (0.79 in) FlaKwagens and seven assault guns and freed the besieged battalion. Of three that remained farther upstream to the south, the most southerly, at Maximiliansau, was destroyed on 21 March when a US artillery shell struck a detonator, setting off prepared demolitions. As the XX Corps’ breakthrough headed toward Kaiserslautern, the 1st Army became increasingly concerned that its formations and units in the ‘Siegfried-Linie’ defences round Saarbrücken and Zweibrücken might be trapped. A third corps, the XXI (Maj. Gen. Frank W. Milburn), was relatively new, having joined the army in January. Using 22 divisions in three corps, this latter was to pin these German forces as the XX Corps swept into their rear. Nonetheless, it must be noted that the 1st Army, and to a lesser extent the 7th Army, fought a skilful delaying action to the end in the face of overwhelming strength on the ground and in the air. Although all four attacking divisions had to overcome the initial obstacle of a river, either the Moder or a tributary, they accomplished the job quickly with predawn assaults. Yet German losses clearly were severe. Yet even before dawn men of the regiment had driven through the main German defence beyond the river. Operation Undertone was a large assault by the U.S. The planners had not reckoned with the aspirations of the French in general and de Lattre de Tassigny, commander of their 1ème Armée, in particular. Noting that the Germans had given no indication of withdrawing from the West Wall in front of the 7th Army and that General Patch thus might be in for a long, costly campaign, Bradley suggested that the 3rd Army jump the Moselle near Koblenz, sweep south along the west bank of the Rhine to cut the enemy′s supply lines, and at the same time press from its previously established Saar-Moselle bridgehead near Trier to come at the West Wall fortifications from the rear. The German problem was to get the survivors of both the LXXXV Korps and the XIII SS Korps through the Pfaelzer Forest despite three dire threats: one from the closely following troops of the U.S. 7th Army; another from the 10th Armored Division of Walker′s XX Corps, which at Kaiserslautern was in a position to swing south and southeast through the Pfaelzer Forest and cut the escape routes; and a third from the Argus-eyed fighter bombers of the XII Tactical Air Command.