Permission was granted providing we cleared in 10 minutes, the battalion cleared in 12 minutes
establishing record time for the crossing and thus making the 343rd F.A. Battalion the first artillery unit,
in the 3rd Army to cross the Rhine.
Although not receiving a casualty the move that evening will long be remembered. Enemy
aircraft and artillery were extremely active around the bridge, but it seemed that they both “took 10”
when we went across. The town of Leeheim was receiving the same treatment but as we neared the city
limits the firing ceased. On through town, no sooner had we cleared than the Krauts dumped everything
they had there. Urban was in position, ready to fire, about 900 yards south of town at 2200.
Many missions were fired during the night and morning. The armor passed through about noon
and drove straight east. The 5th headed for Frankfurt, the 90th to the Main River east of Frankfurt.
Resistance was strong up to Darmstadt where the main line of resistance was broken and the 90th raced
to the Main.
The first day over the Rhine Lt. A. J. Lease, Cpl. C. F. Groom and Pfc. A.F. Meisner, all
members of a Baker FO crew, were captured by the Krauts. Lease and Groom managed to escape the
next day when the armor overran the enemy. Meisner was recaptured sometime later but did not return
to the 343rd.
On 27 March we were at Didtesheim in position to support the assault crossing of the Main.
Artillery preparations started at 0400 the next morning and the infantry crossed against strong resistance.
Good progress was made as more troops poured across. Hundreds of rounds of artillery were fired
during the day with a large percentage of them used in searching for a roving enemy gun. This gun or
guns were hindering the work on the bridge our engineers were attempting to throw across the river.
Double success was finally achieved and we crossed the Main to Wachembuchen at 0200 March 28, five
days after crossing the Rhine.
In the last 23 days the 90th had crossed 4 large rivers, the Kyll, Moselle, Rhine and Main,
slashed thru the Little Siegfried and had ran amuck over hundreds of miles of Germany. Thousands of
prisoners had been captured and nearly as many more killed. There on the Fulda River it paused
momentarily getting its breath and making ready to start on another record drive.
2 April we started moving from the vicinity of Hersfeld toward Zella Mehlis. The 90th straddled
the hills of the famous Thuringen Forest while the armor took to the plains. Because the U.S. First,
Ninth, Fifteenth and British Second Armies north of us had started to move out the Third Army was to
swing southeast, thus the objective of the 90th was changed from Dresden to Prague.
4 April the 357th discovered the famous gold cache in the Merkers salt mines and stayed there to
guard it until the gold had been inventoried and removed by higher headquarters.
The 357th Infantry stopped but we were assigned to supporting the fires of the other regiments
and continued on our way across Germany. The back of the German Army had been broken and with
the exception of a few units that were still intact, resistance was scattered. A few fanatical units fought
savagely while the Volkssturm were only too glad to give up.
17 April at Heinersgrun after a 10 day absence the 357th was back in the war and we went back
in their support. 18th April 90th patrols crossed into Czechoslovakia, and Germany had been split in
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