CHAPTER IV FIRST BRIDGEHEAD

Final preparations for the attack . . . . Even more important than a hot meal . . . .
Slowly, steadily, zero hour was approaching. The 1st Battalion command post was at Lauterborn. Company A occupied positions just west of Echternach along high ground commanding the town, and one platoon outposted the high ground at Thoul, protecting the right flank. Two platoons of Company B were patrolling Echternach itself, with the remainder of the company southeast of the town. While Company C secured the road between Lauterborn and Echternach, the 81 MM mortars of Company D were emplaced just outside of Echternach along the highway leading to Lauterborn, and one platoon of the company's machine guns was located in the eastern part of the town, prepared to place fire on the village of Echternacherbrück on the river's north bank. The second machine gun platoon was on the opposite side of the town, covering the river to the west.
The chosen assault crossing site was near the northwest fringe of Echternach. A road runs parallel to the river at this point, immediately adjacent to which was a railroad yard. Along railroad tracks which practically skirt the river's edge, a barrier of railroad ties had been erected. What the enemy did not have to bolster for defense, but which nature did with a vengeance, was the Sauer River, at this point approximately 150 feet wide and from six to twelve feet deep, changed by the elements from a serenely pastoral waterway to a swift, vicious military obstacle, angrily overrunning its regular channel. Beyond this raging river, on the north side, was a flooded plain extending about 200 yards to the foot of a precipitous escarpment which rises almost vertically to a height of about 450 feet above the river. Leading gradually upward to the top of the escarpment is a draw which extended northeast from the left flank of the regimental zone.
The northwest fringe of Echternach . . . Assault troops were to come up this road towards the river . . . .	No patrols had been able to cross the Sauer in the vicinity of Echternach prior to the attack. From posts in the town, however, enemy movements had been under observation. During daylight hours barbed wire entanglements clearly could be seen along the river's edge. It was already known that between the river and the road there existed a dense antipersonnel minefield covered, moreover, by deadly fire from the pillboxes. A prisoner had reported another minefield at the entrance to the draw. In addition, the reports of visual observation and intelligence were supplemented by thousands of aerial photos of the attack area.
On the 6th the curtain rose on the real-life drama of blood and guts. A Corps Artillery 155 MM "Long Tom" and two tank destroyers of the 808th TD Battalion were brought into Echternach from where they engaged a few of the pillboxes across the river. At the same time regimental antitank guns were whisked into the town to squelch a German tank threat should it materialize once the crossing began. The 3d Battalion, meanwhile, moved into the woods immediately south of Michaelshof. Prior to this, during the night, the 160th Engineers had hidden in Echternach forty assault boats which, on the next night and just prior to the attack, were to be placed along the town's battered street for pick-up by the infantrymen. Of the forty boats allocated to the 1st Battalion, each of the two first-wave companies were to receive sixteen. The remaining eight boats were to be used by assault troops of Company C. After the initial wave the boats were to be returned to the near shore to transport the remainder of the battalion.
Division Commander Maj Gen Schmidt and Combat Team Commander Col Bruner check details of the attack plan . . . . .
Mud was ankle deep; wind-tossed rain whipped through the biting air and solid blackness covered the entire front as ONAWAY troops moved into attack positions the night of 6--7 February. In addition to Division Artillery, the 304th Infantry Regiment was to support the crossing by direct fire. Along the Sauer, rifles and automatic weapons of the 1st and 3d Battalions, together with the 105's of Cannon Company and 57's of Anti-Tank Company, were to lay down a blanket of fire on enemy installations. Shortly after midnight, engineer guides directed Companies A and B, 417th Infantry, to the boats. A manning crew of three engineers and ten infantrymen hand-carried each craft from the town to the river 500 yards away. Moving in a column as silently as possible from the center of Echternach along a street which led to the northwest edge of the town, the portage party proceeded along the highway paralleling the railroad to form a line fronting on the river. In the meantime Lt Col Clarence A. Mette, Jr., the Battalion Commander, moved to his observation post on the extreme northwest fringe of town. From this point of vantage overlooking the Sauer, he directed the crossing operations. The moment had come. At a signal, Company B stole across the railroad through the tie fence and to the river's edge a few yards beyond. Here the bank dropped abruptly four feet to the churning river. In the darkness it was difficult to get the boats into the water and loaded. At 0100 Company B shoved off in the first wave.
Pvt Lewis M. Gregorich was a member of the first platoon to cross the swollen Sauer. He and more than a dozen other tense comrades in the assault boat held their breaths as hails of fire from enemy positions streaked the inky darkness. They hit shore and raced for the hill; struggled up the slippery incline. Suddenly they saw it. There it was, their first pillbox. "We hesitated for a second," Gregorich said, "and then we closed in. We didn't kill the krauts but sent them back alive to the Battalion CP. There were eight of them." Twenty-five "supermen" in a second pillbox fought viciously until they were entirely surrounded, then surrendered meekly. A third pillbox, near the summit, with the help of a bazooka team yielded sixty-two krauts . . . . .