The 325th Combat Engineers

Germany and the Rhine

Operations Summary: The Seventh Army offensive to eliminate all resistance to the Rhine started. The first operation for the battalion was to support the Division in the reduction of the forts of the Maginot line in the vicinity of Bitche and the Citadel of Bitche. Assault squads and demolition teams were organized within the Division but were not used as the assault of these obstacles was not as difficult an operation as was anticipated. Mines were the greatest problem at the start of the attack. Schu mines were laid in fields of as many as 3,000. Schu mines were also laid in conjunction with anti tank fields, making removal difficult. In two areas, abatis of 3,000 yards were removed.

The sign reads "YOU are now entering Germany. There will be NO FRATERNIZATION with ANY German." The sign behind it says no fraternization also.

"March 15th, the 399th jumped off from their Winter Line they had held for 72 days. The 3rd Battalion silently crossed the deep no-man's-land of the Kirscheidt and in the early morning mists of uncertainty fanned out into the German lines at 0613. The surprised enemy was quickly overrun." (399th history)
	"Blue Battalion struck north from Bitche up the main highway toward Germany and the Siegfried. . . . Between the Maginot and the Siegfried Lines lay tall-pined gloomy forests, with mathematical death traps of barbed wire and bunkers on every hill."
	"We're tearing through some peaceful woods and bingo! We come out in the open and here are millions of yellow and green Dragon's Teeth gnashing in the sunshine from horizon to horizon, with deep tank moats behind them. Our road ran between the Teeth and the endless ridge of invisible pillboxes with long 88's craning their necks out. Everywhere were shattered barbed wire and bomb craters, just like the common conception of World WAr I battlegrounds. I'm glad we didn't have fight for this baby." (399th history)

"The armored column pivoted eastward and headed hell for leather through the Hardt Mountains, pricking the point of the 7th Army into Germany. The Race to the Rhine was en route." (399th history)

Operations Summary: The 7th Army offensive to eliminate all resistance to the Rhine started. From the Siegfried Line to the Rhine River at Ludwigshafen, the problem for the engineers was to keep routes clear for the motor columns of the infantry. Expedients of all types were used to by-pass blown bridges and culverts. In most cases timber was available at the site of the demolition. Where timber wasn't readily available rubble and large rocks were used to fill the gap and traffic passed on over and the stream was left to seep through the rock.

"March 24, 1945, the 399th moved for the Rhine. At 0830 a dusty jeep wheeled up to a submerged bridge at Mannheim and Captain Alfred Olsen of Item Company got out. 'So this is the Rhine. Hmph, it doesn't look so tough.' ... Across the river, factories and cranes were still humming away turning out guns. Sniper and SP-88 fire raged across the Rhine day and night." (399th history)

"The 399th was relieved by the 71st Division and pulled back off the Rhine a few miles. The 3rd and 45th Divisions had crossed the Rhine to the north and the 100th Division was awaiting priority to get across into the bridgehead. . . . The Rhine was green, white-capped, and only 200 yards wide where the 399th went across on a water-level pontoon bridge the last day of March." (399th history)

This is a different bridge, I think, but it's a floating one across the Rhine.

2 April 1945 "Somewhere in Germany"--"Haven't much time to write lately so please excuse. Germany is a beautiful country, not much like France. There isn't much to write about because so much has happend in the past few weeks. Bagley is having his fling in England yet. He will probably be gone for a few weeks. The Rhine is a beautiful stream. You should see the white flags waving in the towns every thing from sheets to nite gowns and long johns." (Gordon Morse to Margaret Morse)
1 April 1945 "Supported 2nd Battalion on attack on Hockenheim, Germany. Swept roads, and put in by pass in vicinity of Hockenheim." (daily report)	"Easter Sunday, April 1, the Regiment kicked off east of the Rhine. Pushing through the 63rd Division between Bruhl and Schwetzingen, the 399th struck south. 'Why does the infantryman sit down in an easy chair with a big show of schnapps on April 1st?' quipped one of the Paddlefeet. 'I dunno.' 'Because he's completely beat out, having just finished a March of 31 days.' The enemy was fading. We hadn't fired at a Jerry in ages." (399th history)
2 April 1945 "Swept roads in vicinity of the 399th infantry" (daily platoon reports)	"Big white surrender flags and German civilians hung out of every window, taking their first look at these conquerors from America who had dared to breech their invincible Siegfried into the Aryan sanctity of the Fatherland. They saw sand-bagged Shermans with stubby defiant 76 mm snozzles roar proudly past. They saw tough-looking American soldiers riding the tanks--human grenade trees with Browning automatic rifles, camouflaged helmets, black streaked faces, and Buck Rogerish goggles." (399th history)

Zederbaum "Ex-Germany City"

"It is impossible to describe the destruction wrought in industrial cities such as Mannheim. There is nothing left." (Gordon Morse)

There was a German town that had a zipper factory, a silver factory, and a film factory. T.C. got film (which financed his leave in Paris), some got silver. J.P. got zippers and sent them home. (J. P. Wallis, 2003 Florida reunion)

"I remember we topped a hill over there one time and here come a group of soldiers marching. And they were all Japanese. But hell we hadn't heard there were Japanese Americans over there and we been over there so long and heard so many stories about San Francisco getting bombed and what all. The first thing that I heard when I first got over there, from the soldiers over there that had been in the African campaign, they started asking us what was happening to the folks back home. We said, nothing. They didn't believe us. They had heard all this war stuff that they'd been saying over the radio there. And you start to wonder. A whole battalion of Japanese Americans. When you top a hill over there going just as fast as you can on one of those superhighways in that damn jeep and it's you and Bell and the radio oeprator all by yourself and you top a damn hill and see all these Japanese marching at you, you say what the hell. We hadn't heard that there were any Japanese over there." (T. C. Moore, 2001

Bagley once told a story of driving with Ding somewhere. Suddenly the shells started coming in, so they got the hell out of there and ran right into a pile of potatoes. Potatoes everywhere and they were stuck. (Wendy Ding Smith, 2003 Florida reunion)

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Bitche	Rhine	Heilbronn

The 325th Combat Engineers

Germany and the Rhine

"The armored column pivoted eastward and headed hell for leather through the Hardt Mountains, pricking the point of the 7th Army into Germany. The Race to the Rhine was en route." (399th history)

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