Oral History - World War II Rhine River Crossing (1945)

Recollections of US Navy Lieutenant Wilton Wenker, Commanding Officer of LCVP [Landing Craft, Vehicle and Personnel] Unit No. One, and Lieutenant Elby, his Executive Officer, concerning the crossing of the Rhine River in 1945.

Wenker:

I received my orders as Commanding Officer of this unit on October 4th, in Cherbourg, France. At that time the unit was being assembled in Dartmouth, England. LCVP Unit No. 1 originally was to be the only naval unit to support the Army in the Rhine crossing, however a short time afterwards four other units, similar units, were assembled for the same purpose.

Unit No. 2 was to support the 3rd Army, under General Patton, and Unit No. 3 was to support the 9th Army. Unit No. 4 was considered a reserve unit and was stationed in Le Havre. Unit No. 5 was assembled and based in England and that unit was to support the 7th Army. Unit 1 moved up into Belgium and arrived there on October 18th.

We were immediately attached to 1120th group of 7th Corps, 1st Army. The boats were brought up to this area on 40-foot

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flat bed trailers and dumped on the little secondary road completely covered with camouflage, painted olive drab for security reasons.

Within a week six of the boats were taken down to Cheratte, Belgium, to open up a training site along with 298th Battalion, Combat Engineers. The purpose of this training was to find a successful method, or methods, of launching the craft in the river similar to the Rhine. One week later a second training site was opened at Liege, Belgium with the 297th Battalion, Combat Engineers.

Source: http://www.history.army.mil/catalog/pubs/10/10-22.html

THE CORPS OF ENGINEERS: THE WAR AGAINST GERMANY

Alfred M. Beck, Abe Bortz, Charles W. Lynch, Lida Mayo, and Ralph F. Weld

GPO S/N: 008-029-00131-4

Engineer operations during the campaigns in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and northwest Europe.

The Road to Periers

There was little room to maneuver. For the attack south from Carentan to Periers, VII Corps had the 4th and 9th Infantry Divisions, which had participated in the capture of Cherbourg, and the 83d Division, which had arrived in Normandy late in June to relieve the 101st Airborne Division. To reach its objective the corps had to pass down a corridor resembling an isthmus two to three miles wide, with marshes on either side. This restricted the advance at the outset to two divisions; the 83d was to lead off on 4 July, followed by the 4th.

The 9th was not to be committed until the leading divisions had taken objectives on the Periers-St. Lo road. In addition to their organic engineer combat battalions, the divisions had the support of two engineer combat groups: the 1106th, with engineer combat battalions behind the 83d and 9th Divisions, and the 1120th, supporting the 4th Division and corps troops. The commander of the 1106th Engineer Combat Group, Col. Thomas DeF. Rogers, first had to undo previous engineer efforts—drain the Douve marshes that had been flooded to protect VII Corps' rear on its march to Cherbourg and clear a huge minefield that American forces had planted below Carentan to protect the 101st Airborne Division from a frontal attack. Two companies of the 238th Engineer Combat Battalion had the task of lifting the mines.

Although enemy artillery and small arms fire slowed the work, they removed 12,000 mines in two days. Meanwhile, battalions from both engineer combat groups drained marshes and maintained and guarded bridges over the Douve River.

When the 83d Division jumped off on the Fourth of July behind a ten minute artillery preparation—"plenty of fireworks, but of a deadlier kind than those back home"—its 308th Engineer Combat Battalion, backed by the 238th Engineer Combat Battalion, built hasty bridges, maintained defensive positions at night, and blew hedgerows so that tanks could advance. The Germans, protected behind the hedgerows, reacted strongly with artillery and machinegun fire. The advance down the narrow isthmus went so slowly that after two days the VII Corps commander turned the 83d Division east toward the Taute River to make room to commit the 4th Division. That division, with engineer support from its organic 4th Engineer Combat Battalion and the 1102d Combat Group's 298th Engineer

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Combat Battalion, also had hard going. Six miles northeast of Periers the narrow neck of high land descended into a rain-swollen bog. Leading elements reached this point on 8 July. A week later, still four miles south of Periers, the 4th Division halted and went into reserve. In ten days of fighting it had sustained 2,500 casualties.

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VII Corps Engineers in the Cobra Breakthrough While XIX Corps was assuming engineer responsibility for the construction and maintenance of bridges and roads, it was also preparing its part in Operation COBRA. The operation called for troops to break out of the bocage and through the German lines to the south, then to liberate more ports in Brittany.

To open the offensive, air forces were to deluge a well-defined area south of the St. Lo-Periers road with light antipersonnel bombs designed to destroy enemy troop concentrations without tearing up the terrain to the detriment of attacking American armor and infantry.

The corps' mission was to seize and hold a line from Coutances to Marigny, about eight miles to the northeast, in order to cut off and destroy the enemy facing VIII Corps in the Lessay-Periers area and to prevent German reinforcements' approach from the south and east. Armor to support the thrust was to pass through gaps the 9th and 30th Infantry Divisions opened.

The VII Corps engineers devoted their efforts to opening and maintaining main supply routes (MSRs) to support the advance. The 1106th Engineer Combat Group was to support the 30th Infantry Division, advancing along high ground on the Vire's west bank with the 2d Armored Division following. The area had two main supply routes. One MSR (D—77), a two-way road for Class 40 traffic, was the responsibility of the group's 49th Engineer Combat Battalion; the other (D-446), a one-way Class 40 road, the 237th Engineer Combat Battalion was to open and maintain. A third engineer combat battalion, the 238th, would support the 2d Armored Division. On VII Corps' right flank the 1120th Engineer Combat Group was to support the 1st and 9th Infantry Divisions and the 3d Armored Division.

The 1120th's 294th and 297th Engineer Combat Battalions were responsible for maintaining the two main supply routes—from Tribehou to Marigny—on the right flank, while the 298th Engineer Combat Battalion was to support the 3d Armored Division. Army engineer support in the VII Corps area was the responsibility of the 1111th Engineer Combat Group. About a week before COBRA, Maj. Gen. Manton S. Eddy, commanding the 9th Division, complained that the front assigned his division was too wide. General Bradley then gave VII Corps the 4th Infantry Division to attack down the center of the breakthrough area. The 1106th and 1120th Groups divided the engineer support mission for the 4th Division. According to the VII Corps plan, the 9th, 4th, and 30th Divisions were to be near the St. Lo-Periers road on 20 July, ready to break through as soon as possible after a massive air bombardment. But pouring rain and cloudy skies forced postponement of the bombardment until the morning of 25 July.

By 17 July the engineers were at work on the main supply routes down which the tanks were to roll, sweeping the roads from shoulder to shoulder for mines, repairing craters and potholes, and clearing away rubble. For the diffi-

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cult problem of removing abandoned heavy German tanks, the 1106th Engineer Combat Group supplied heavy block and tackle of about fifty-ton capacity, threaded with 7/8-inch cable and operated by a four-ton wrecker. The 49th Engineer Combat Battalion tested the equipment successfully on a Tiger tank. Later the battalion used a simpler method for one more or less intact tank—the battalion's S-3 removed booby traps from the tank and drove it off the road under its own power. For "rush crossings" of bomb craters the 1106th Engineer Combat Group supplied the 2d Armored Division with sections of treadway bridging. "It's raining very hard," noted the 1106th Group's journal on 21 July; next day it was "still pouring." Mud made the construction of bypasses for infantry troops difficult, and gravel had to be brought up and stockpiled at strategic points to keep the four main supply routes firm enough for tanks. The work went on under increasingly heavy enemy artilley fire. For example, on the evening of 21 July at an engineer bivouac near Tribehou, German shells exploded a demolition dump, killing two men of the 298th Engineer Combat Battalion and wounding fourteen.

On 23 July the weather began to clear, and on the morning of the twenty-fifth the engineers maintaining the roads in the VII Corps area saw the sky blackened with Allied planes. The COBRA breakthrough had begun. As the infantry divisions broke across the Coutances-St. Lo highway between Marigny and St. Gilles, the engineers, working night and day, had roads ready for the tanks.

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