Navigation bar
  Home View PDF document Start Previous page
 2 of 4 
Next page End 1 2 3 4  

regulated the flow, hurrying up the lines of vehicles as  the bridges looked capable of handling more,
diverting threatened jams away from the "hotspots" along the river as Nazi planes came in to strafe  and
bomb, or artillery fire started to fall.  A careful estimate indicated that between 24 March 45, when the
first bridge opened, and 31 March 45, about 60,000 vehicles had crossed crossed over XII Corps
bridges.  These included approximately 10,000 vehicles of XX Corps.  The principal tactical units
checked across the bridges included:
5th Infantry division (less assault troops)
90th Infantry Division (less assault troops)
4th Armored Division
6th Armored Division
26th Infantry Division
Corps Artillery Troops
11th Armored Division
71st Infantry Division
2nd Cavalry Group
3rd Cavalry Group
80th Infantry Division (1 CT)
65th Infantry Division (1 CT)
"It was my most interesting assignment during the war," says Colonel Johnson, adding, in his
official report, that an "efficient communication system and the work of the MP's assisted greatly in
accomplishing the rapid crossing of the troops."  The former DC/S of the Corps, paying high tribute to
Colonel Johnson, comments: "The system of waiting assembly areas, information posts, control posts,
guides, MPs, wire radio, airplane observation, etc., operated like a huge block system on a densely
trafficked railroad.  Additional dispersal and waiting areas were established on the east bank."
One of the six teaming assembly areas in the gentle hills bordering the Rhine on the west was in
the vicinity of General Eddy's advance command post, set up ads Undenheim from noon of 24 March
until the Forward Echelon absorbed it again on its way through to Gross Gerau three days later.
Traffic control, crossing control, and control of the fighting on the far bank called as always for
communications, and the 93rd Signal Battalion and other XII Corps communications agencies were also
continuously in the thick of the activities.  As an instance of this work, the Signal Battalion's special
underwater telephone cable, described in the first section of this chapter, was started across the river at
1500 23 March 45.  The line truck and cable trailer were  run on an engineer ferry and the cable
cautiously paid out and weighted as the ferry made its way, under German artillery fire, to the east bank,
where the cable was secured and opened for traffic.  This touchy operation was conducted by a wire
team headed by S/Sgt Ross Gerber, under supervision of Lt Roy Riggs and Lt Col (then Major) Scanlan. 
A second cable was prepared during that night and laid in place on the following day by Sgt Gerber's
crew.  Just to make assurance doubly sure, more cables, to a total number of eight, were run across the
engineer bridges as they were finished, until Col "Andy" Anderson and Maj John Myers, and the others
in the Corps headquarters Signal Section, could feel that the system was absolute leak proof against any
shelling or bombing that the enemy might be able to bring down upon it.
Thus XII Corps services and supporting troops poured into the swelling bridgehead by night and
day, in all the multiplicity of types of units which compose a modern mechanized army.  There even
developed a certain truck-meet spirit as each outfit hastened to be the first of its kind across the once
dreaded barrier, now proved so vulnerable.  Unit histories for the period reveal no lack of such
statements as: "... to Battery C (of the 457th AAA AW Battalion) went the distinction of being the first
Previous page Top Next page