On its 225-kilometer parallel drive to Giessen, Company L, with Task-Force Townsend, was seeing the same kind of steamroller action. With Capt. Gray coordinating his forces to the armor in a new system of mobile action, platoons traveled with subdivisions of the task force. Typical of the action seen by the company is one incident described by 1st platoon leader Lt. David E. Lindenau.
"We had already done a hard day's fighting when information came back to our trucks that an enemy battalion CP was still located in the next village. The order was, 'Take it!' So the column roared forward and plowed into the center of the town with all guns blazing. Darkness had already fallen, but light for night operations was no problem. Tracer fire was directed into several barns and in a few minutes the whole town was ablaze with burning buildings. Our platoon went at the job of clearing out the town, assisted by tank men who wanted the thrill of infantry action. As the house-to-house fight continued, it became evident that sniper fire was concentrated in buildings at the far end of town. A TD was brought up to aid the riflemen, but before it arrived, a tank sergeant exposed himself and was instantly killed by a burst from a machine pistol. Purely for revenge, after witnessing this action, the TD approached the building from which the pistol was fired, rammed the muzzle of his 90 mm through the window and pulled the lanyard. The house literally blew apart. By this time all resistance had been knocked out by riflemen and armor with the exception of one machine-gun.

ST. GOAR

One of our squad leaders took on the job himself. Approaching from the rear, moving only when the machine-gun fired, he was able to enter the very room where the machine-gunner was firing, before his presence was known. As the Kraut turned, reaching for his pistol, a burst of thirty rounds from the squad leader's M-3 polished off the last enemy position in this town. The squad leader was reprimanded--not too severely--for wasting ammunition. The doughboys had come through unscathed, but the enemy had taken it on the chin again--153 prisoners, fifty of whom were officers ranking up to colonel, and an uncounted number of dead and wounded."

THERE was no doubt in anyone's mind that it was a job well done. If any corroboration were needed, there is the commendation of Col. Edward M. Fickett, commanding officer of the 6th Cavalry, for whom the task-force was named. In a glowing tribute forwarded through channels to K and L Companies, seconded by Gen. Schmidt and Col. Choquette, the task-force commander gave his opinion without reservations.
"All of these units, during a four-day period of highly mobile, fluid action, were engaged in combat. Each performed its assigned tasks with professional skill and extremely keen enthusiasm, and demonstrated the very finest degree of cooperation. It is particularly noteworthy that the two rifle companies were able to adjust themselves to the speed of mechanized action. They were continually present when they were needed and where they were needed.
As TF Fickett pushed ahead, the 304th was percolating another trans-Rhine mission. Companies I and M of the 3rd battalion were now relieved by the 2nd battalion, which took over the mission of guarding the Rhine bridges at St. Goar and Boppard. On Good Friday, March 30th, without the 2nd battalion, the regiment crossed the Rhine over the steel treadway bridge at St. Goar and proceeded to the vicinity of Esch, approximately sixty-five kilometers beyond the river.

Three days later, the combat team was reunited, with K and L Companies back in the battalion fold and the 2nd battalion across the Rhine.
Here, for the division and the regiment, there was a job of sweeping and screening and clearing which was to recur intermittently as the advance continued. The armor had pushed ahead, ribboning the enemy into small concentrations which constituted a real danger to large-scale Allied operations. These enemy elements, it was found, made a calculated effort to avoid the armor. Their object was to ambush less heavily protected convoys which followed, to cut supply lines and to practice guerrilla tactics generally. The regimental convoy itself, in entering Esch had barely escaped such an ambush, regimental PW interrogators learned. An enemy group had assembled a complete 88 mm gun from several abandoned pieces, and towed it by hand to a covered point overlooking the convoy route just outside Esch. They planned well, but too late.
The following extract from the battalion surgeon's diary is typical of the action and progress which was being made at this time:
"Out of it all came a long convoy ride to Wengerohr, L|xem Dorf, Hasborn, Polch, Rheinbvllen, Stromberg. Ended up in Waldalgesheim. This was up close to the Rhine River--within sight of it after a short ride, and not too far from Koblenz. It was a long trip, some of it on a large autobahn--which seemed overrun with U.S. Army vehicles. On this trip we particularly feared strafing, etc. Also on this trip was when I started reading mystery stories while on convoy. The adjoining towns were Bingen and Bingerbr|ck. The former had just been taken the day before by a cavalry unit after a tough fight. All the while now we're seeing and taking truck loads of prisoners. (The capacity of a truck is a debatable point with opinions running from 50 to 60 to 80. There is no argument tho' about the best way of getting the most in. Drive 30 yards fast and jam the brakes on--that throws them all together--then put on go more and tie them in. They are happy to be prisoners--most of them.)"

From their present forward positions, the battalions, aided by Anti-Tank and Cannon Companies, retraced mile by mile ground they had come through, back to the Rhine itself, stamping out such resistance. In this area, for the first time, the regiment hauled in sizable groups of SS men, fanatic super-elite of Hitler's army. Often before, Intelligence had shown, the SS had been larded-in with run-of-the-mill German troops to raise morale; but more frequently they were stationed in rear areas to guarantee that weaker footsloggers did not retreat without a fight. But, east of the Rhine, groups made up exclusively of these SS men offered sporadically bitter, last-ditch resistance.
The bulk of enemy forces corralled through screening, however, were from outfits such as the 599th (mixed) AAA Bn. and 9th AAA Division of the 4th AAA Corps. There were many stragglers, deserters and convalescents of the 352nd, 212th and 559th Volksgrenadier Divisions, XIII Corps units and 2nd Panzer Division. Among hundreds of PWs captured were the commanding officer and adjutant of the 38th Armored Infantry Regiment, and the G-2 of the 559th V.G. Division. Here, for the first time also, the regiment encountered large-scale use by the enemy of captured American equipment. Around Esch, the Nazis were using eleven jeeps, an M-24 tank, a Sherman tank, even a kitchen truck. Another new phenomenon was the increasingly hostile attitude of civilians. There were instances of civilians firing on American troops, and of many soldiers being captured wearing civilian clothing which they had donned when capture became imminent.
But the main body of enemy forces were continuing to withdraw north and east to an area generally east of the Weil River. It was no longer the orderly, brilliant retreat on which von Rundstedt had prided himself. The rear guard was an uncoordinated assortment of disorganized groups who used towns, hills and woods or anything at all which came to hand for purposes of helter-skelter, half-baked delaying actions.
Under these conditions another long motor movement could not be long in materializing. On March 31st, Division informed regiment that the present sweeping and screening mission was to be accelerated. Two days later all current operations were abruptly suspended. The 707th Quartermaster Trucking Battalion, Company A, suddenly appeared on the scene and was used to motorize the regiment.