The Story of the 10th Armored Division cont.
Such were the greetings when the Tigers docked Sept. 23, 1944, in Cherbourg Harbor, the second division to sail directly from the States to France in World War II.
Gen. Patton and Gen. Hodges had recently accomplished the St. Lo breakthrough, crushing a German Army in the Falaise-Argentan trap and chasing a retreating Wehrmacht across France. Now Third Army stood poised at the gates of Metz; First Army was astride the "holy soil" of Germany near Aachen.
Few anticipated the bitter fighting which was still ahead. The 10th soon found out for itself. Joining Gen. Patton's forces outside France's famed fortress city in late October, the Tigers received their baptism of fire in the shadow of Fort Driant.
"Grab 'em by the nose and kick 'em by the pants!" was the essence of the tactical maneuver of envelopment. The Tigers were to do the pants kicking in an attack calculated to topple the Metz bastion for the first time in 1500 years.
The 5th and 95th Inf. Divs. would pinch the nose with an assault on the city itself. Meanwhile, the 90th Inf. Div. would drive northward, bridge the Moselle River on the vicinity of Thionville. Then the 10th's armor would crack the bridgehead line and play havoc with Metz's rear communications and supply, cut off the garrison's escape route.
Tank-infantry teams CC A and B crossed the rain-swollen, rampaging Moselle Nov. 14-15, and coiled along the east bank 23 miles northeast of Metz. CC B's TF Cherry unwound with terrific impact directly eastward toward the Reich's border. CC A's TF Chamberlain and TF Standish knifed southeast along the secondary roads to slash the Metz-Saarlautern highway at Bouzonville.