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that was already clear to all concerned. In the bridgehead areas, the German showed fiendish ingenuity
in booby-trapping. Even their own dead were mined. German bodies often lay for weeks without being
moved because to touch them meant to risk one's life.
Information gathered by patrols and assembled by Corps G-2 Section revealed that the enemy
intended to hold Metz in the Moselle River line at all costs. German troops were observed erecting field
fortifications and strengthening the existing defenses in and around the Metz forts. Another "Hitler
Battle" was facing the troops of XX Corps.
To give a clear picture of the Metz campaign difficulties met by XX Corps, some account must
be given of the bastion of Metz and its great rings of forts.
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