The Story of the 10th Armored Division cont.
Pressure relieved inthe south, CC B and Reserve Command spanned the Kyll near Ehrang. To enable TF Chamberlain's ranks to launch an armored attack, TF Haskell's Infantry deftly swept Germans and guns from hills overlooking the town of Schweich.
Here the Tigers became better acquainted with a treacherous foe. They hadn't shelled Schweich because of the Nazi pleas that it be declared an open city, since it was "undefended and used to hospitalize 3000 German wounded." On entry, 10th found Schweich defended by infantry and 88s, its streets mined, and only two wounded instead of 3000. Minutes after its capture, the "open city" was being shelled — by the Nazis.
TF Hankins flanked Wittlich to the east and TF Cherry entered the town to clear the objective March 10. Four task forces mopped up the 44 square-mile pocket CC A had sewn.
Mission accomplished, the division with the exception of TF Cherry, moved back into Trier. The task force drove 10 miles further northeast attempting to seize a north-south bridge over the Mosel at Bullay, half way between Trier and Coblenz. Finding the bridge blown, tankers destroyed a 50-vehicle convoy.
Armoraiders Stitch Palatinate Pocket
Like the sweep of a giant pendulum, the Allied war machine had closed on the Rhine from the Netherlands to Coblenz by early March. The hill-studded Saar Basin, and forested Palatinate, sprawled in the shape of a rough diamond, represented Germany's remaining holdings west of the Rhine.
Gen. Patton's Third Army now faced south the length of the Mosel and Gen. Patch's Seventh Army looked north into the Siegfried Line, both Armies forming the jaws of a nutcracker. The Saar-Palatinate — with its coal, its steel and its 100,000 German soldiers &3151; was the nut. On March 14, the jaws began to close.
The 10th, at the cracker's fulcrum southeast of Trier, would make the difficult frontal assault eastward. The 94th and 80th Inf. Divs. dented the Nazi lines and the Tigers own spearheads, CC A and B, darted through at dawn, March 16.