A
heavy machine gun covers advancing troops . . . |
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Between the German bank and the top of the mountain a narrow gauge track climbs for 700 feet on a slope ranging from forty-five to seventy-five degrees. As the company under Capt Hickman reached the tracks the captain stumbled on a wire. Instantly the valley became alive with the frightful clatter of hidden tin cans. The clatter froze every man into immobility, tense, waiting. Nothing happened. Capt Hickman motioned to Pfc Martin Grenault to cut the wire but Grenault, in doing so, accidentally touched one of the cans. Again the strident ringing filled the black ominous valley and again all froze in their tracks. Still no move from the enemy. At last the wires were cut and the troops continued the slow, grueling climb up the steep hill. Simultaneously in the northwest, Lt Col Donald J. Richardson's 2d Battalion, spearheaded by Company G under Capt James O. Roberts, with Company A attached and following the initial wave, was crossing the Kyll in ten assault boats which the engineers laboriously had hand-carried 400 yards down to the river along a winding mountain trail. While they descended on Hosten, the 3d Battalion men reached the summit of their climb to Orenhofen. Dawn was just breaking over a seemingly peaceful village and the enemy's inactivity and smug faith in the sanctuary of its citadel was immediately highlighted: 250 Germans, many of them still asleep in their beds, were swiftly surrounded and accounted for. |
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supply problems were the responsibility of Division G-4 Section. |
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The synchronized surprise crossing of the 2d Battalion doughboys, meanwhile, brought them with equal success to Hosten, which they took in short order. The ultimate in surprise with which Col Wallace A. Choquette's 304th Infantry pierced the Kyll riverline defenses is further revealed by the experience of Capt (then Lt) Sidney Reiter as he and Company F were engaged in clearing Hosten of enemy forces. Coming upon a German communications center they quietly entered the building and with quick dispatch took fifteen prisoners. Then Capt Reiter entered the switchboard room; an operator was engrossingly hunched over his work. "Put your hands up," the captain commanded in German.- Without even turning, the German soldier replied, "Are you crazy?" Capt Reiter ordered the operator to turn around and give a gander. The kraut turned, looked, and surrendered fast. The surprise element likewise aided Sgt Mucedola's platoon. Once across the river the Yanks moved cautiously into position for their flanking mission. Nothing could be heard but the noises of snapped twigs and brushed branches and the tense breathing of the men as they made their labored way through inky darkness over the rough terrain. Suddenly a voice called out in German; the platoon instantly froze as two nazi outpost guards loomed out of the darkness. Seeing only the platoon's lead man, Pfc Donald E. Cook, one of the guards inquisitively advanced closer. Both men reacted simultaneously, Cook's bullet striking the German between the eyes, and the nazi's bullet splintering Cook's rifle, driving pieces of it into his body. Members of the platoon immediately overcame the remaining guard while Cpl August Manzone administered first aid to Cook and evacuated him to the rear. A nearby enemy machine gun began spitting lead. Under the protective fire of his men, Sgt Mucedola advanced to within twenty yards of the hostile gun position and neutralized it with hand grenades . . . . . |
Nazi
artillery and mortar fire developed with angry intensity . . |
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At Hosten, meanwhile, enemy firing had developed in proportion with the realization that Americans had done the "impossible". Undirected and sporadic at first, German artillery and mortar fire developed with angry intensity. Machine gun crossfire and, in addition, revengeful snipers made the river such a hot spot that the 1st Battalion did not follow the 2d for twenty-four hours, during which time the resistance pockets were neutralized. Combat Team 417, attached to the 10th Armored Division, began moving into a new zone of action by noon of 4 March, but 3d Battalion 385th Infantry continued its screening mission on the west bank, with Task Force ONAWAY constantly poised to cross the Kyll on division order. With Hosten taken, the advance on Priest and Speicher was assured. By morning of 5 March the 304th's 2d Battalion had taken Priest and was advancing on Speicher. In the former town a German officer had just returned from a long leave in time to be taken prisoner with a host of his command. The officer was dazed; he scarcely could believe the western push had developed and advanced so rapidly. The 3d Battalion back at Orenhofen, though, ran into some additional action. |