The Story of the 10th Armored Division cont.
10th Armored — Always Into the Enemy
The Rhine, Germany's legendar pre-Siegfried Wall, had become a leaky dike by late March and Germany hadn't enough thumbs to plug five breaches through which tides of Allied might pured.
The 10th's southward drive in the Palatinate had
overrun Seventh Army boundaries and brought Tigers under Gen. Patch's command. Seventh Army had bridged the Rhine near the cathedral city of Worms, and was fighting in pulverized Mannheim on the east bank. To Join the 44thInf. Div. there, the 10th ro11ed across the historic stream March 28-29.
From Mannheim, where it empties into the the bed of the Neckar River extends eastward 20
miles, then curves gently southward through the macht arsenal of Heilbronn. The Neckar became hinge for Gen. Morris' tri-pronged blow at Germany's vitals March 30.
Reserve Command and TF Lichirie's swift cavalry reconnaisance troopsknifed along the river's north
bank. CC A attacked southeast directly toward Heilbronn, and Col. Basil G. Thayer's CC B thrust southward paralelling the Rhine's east bank.
At the day's end, TF Chamberlain had struck rough going, smacking into Germany's 198th Inf. Div one of the Western Front's strongest. Elsewhere the sailing was smoother. Cavalrymen and TF Thackston had dashed 20 miles virtually unopposed. T Richardson sped along the Mannheim-Stuttgart super highway, and TF Riley advanced 10 miles, pushing through Heidelberg which had capitulated a few hours earlier to the 63rd Inf. Div.
Beneath Heidelberg's statue of Bismarck, the Tiger found a letter addressed to Gen. Eisenhower, signed by the "Women of Heidelberg," asking for the "resurrection of common sense and decency" and "a peace based on wisdom." Ahead were other Germans, with rifle in hand, who would ask the same — once the rifle could be taken away from them at the cost of a American life.
Screened by TF Chamberlain, elements of the First French Army hopped the Rhine near Speyer March 3 The 10th was the first Allied unit contacted by French troops east of the Rhine.
Tigers cracked the backbone of Nazi defenses in th Rhine-Neckar area April 1-2. In successive jumps of 16 and 22 miles, TF Riley's tankers arrived at the gate of Heilbronn. TF Richardson and TF Chamberlain crushed two shells of fanatical enemy resistancetoreac CC B's objective 20 miles south of Mannheim and pivot eastward for 1 25-mile spurt to Heilbronn.
East of Heilbronn, the crack 17th Panzer Grenadier Div. had holed up. While the 100th Inf. Div. assaulted the Heilbron bastion, the 10th moved in secrecy. When it appeared next, the "Ghost Division" was 40 miles east of Heilbronn, behind the startled 17th SS, and astride the Nurnberg-Stuttgart highway deep in Germany.
In two days, CC A and R had engineered one of the division's most brilliant maneuvers. TF Thackston had breeched Naze defenses north of the Jagst River. Paced by TF Hankins, CC A then swung north, east and south on a 70-mile arc to seize strategic Crailshem April 7. TF Riley and a similar unit under Lt. Col. William T.S. Roberts followed, drove west toward Heilbronn to further encircle the SS division.