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crossing site and hampered bridging and ferrying operations of the engineers during the first 24 hours.
On the second day, Corps engineers prepared a ford 400 yards north of Arnaville, and tanks and tank
destroyers were rushed across the river into the bridgehead zone.
On the night of September 9th, XX Corps Headquarters lost one of its most fearless and devoted
officers. Colonel Howard Snyder, Corps G-3, and Major Terry Overton, G-3 Section, were at the scene
of the Arnaville crossing, checking the progress of the troops, when an infantry company deviated from
its prescribed crossing site. Disregarding their own safety during the heavy shelling, the Corps officers
guided troops to the correct place. A120 mm mortar round landed close by killing Major Overton and
critically wounding Colonel Snyder.
By the afternoon of September 12th a Class 40 bridge was completed by the engineers and
supplies were taken over the Moselle. The bridgehead was now held securely in an area 4,000 yards
wide and 3,000 yards deep.
The weather made the job a tough one. Rain and low visibility were almost continuous. Support
by fighter bombers and artillery was, for the most part, denied the assault troops of XX Corps. Tanks
frequently bogged down on slippery hills and churned up roads.
Hill 396, a piece of commanding ground that dominated the area to the east and south of the
bridgehead, was a critical objective in the plans for XX Corps for further movement east. During the
14th and 15th of September, the Corps regrouped its forces for a drive on this important feature of the
terrain.
On September 16th, a column of 7th Armored Division was sent south of Hill 396 to seize the
towns of Mardigny and Vittonville but the armored spearhead was dulled at Marieulles by intense
artillery fire.
On the 17th, the Germans launched a major counterattacked in a desperate bid to pinch off the
Corps salient and drive it back into the river. The German commanders evidently regarded XX Corps
operations at Arnaville as a serious threat to the outer defenses of the Metz region.
The furious counterattack was stopped cold in bitter hand-to-hand fighting. This achievement
was the more amazing in as much as the officers’ candidate school troops, who opposed the Corps armor
and infantry, were fighting over terrain which they had defended on maneuvers innumerable times and
the defense of which had been mapped out in the classroom and polished to the point of perfection.
They were fighting, in addition, against a foe whose capabilities must have been the subject of serious
study. These German troops were not a beaten foe, as were some encountered during the swift drive
across France; they were the flower of what was once reputed to be the cream of the world's armies.
The enemy counterattack the bridgehead until he almost exhausted his strength. Sometimes, screaming
and shouting like a Japanese "Banzai" charge, the enemy troops came in waves into the waiting guns of
XX Corps troops. The Corps Commanders employment of his armored columns continued to startle the
German commanders. Even during periods of low visibility and in thick mud that was all but
impassable, Corps armor swept right up to pillboxes and armored casemates and kept them "buttoned
up" until the infantry and engineers could blow them with satchel charges
Elements of the 7th Armored Division, after being once repulsed, took the town of Marieulles by
storm and advanced toward Sillegny and the Seille River. Another armored column wheeled south to
make contact with the XII Corps and to breach the Seille at Longueville.
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