By this time, VII Corps had shattered the northern flank of the German 15th Army, and the division started moving much faster. The situation now became highly fluid, similar to that after the breakout in Nonnandy, but the conditions were different. The terrain was still rugged, and it was difficult to maintain contact among columns. German communications were still somewhat intact, and they continued to put up numerous roadblocks and counterattack from the flanks.
First Army’s overall tactical plan called for a deep penetration so rapid that we would get completely through their advance communication zone. By the early morning of March 28, the division had slashed through Herborn and Marburg and was ready to swing north. In less than three days, it had driven seventy miles (more than a hundred miles by road), which was farther than the Germans had driven in the first three weeks of the Battle of the Bulge.
The division was ordered to move rapidly to the north to meet up with the Ninth Army in the vicinity of Paderborn.
The 2d Armored Division was driving hard across the northern border of the Ruhr. We knew that if we could connect with the Ninth Army, we would completely cut off major elements of the German army in the Ruhr Pocket. The division fanned out, each of its six columns with four P47 dive-bombers over it during the daylight hours.
Even though we were deep inside German territory, our complete domination of the air gave us tremendous superiority. All opposition was bypassed where possible, and if a column became bogged down another would outflank the roadblock. Additional battalions from the 1st and the 104th Infantry Divisions were assigned to the task forces.
On the night of March 28, I left CCB with my combat loss report. On the morning of the twenty-ninth, I returned to Marburg and headed north, traveling alone, to try to catch up with the division. Whenever I left the combat command in the evenings, I always made it a practice to go by headquarters and look at the G2 map. It was important to know the next day’s objectives and the routes the columns would follow. When I made the return trip, I wanted to follow the road the combat command had been on. In a fast-moving situation such as this, the Germans were cleared only to the hedgerows. As a liaison officer traveling alone, I knew I was particularly vulnerable.
About ten miles north of Marburg, with the windshield down and Wrayford driving at our top speed of sixty-five miles an hour, we suddenly came to a Y in the road. For a moment I was not sure which was the main road and which was the secondary road. I took a guess and told Wrayford to turn to the right. We had gone about a hundred yards when it hit me and I screamed, “Stop! Dammit let’s get the hell out of here fast!”
Wrayford slammed on the brakes, turned so fast that he nearly flipped the Jeep, then headed back at top speed in the opposite direction. When we got back to the road junction, we stopped to look at the map again.
I heard a voice call out, “Are you from the Third Armored?”
I looked in the direction of the voice, and on a knoll about fifteen feet above the road to my right I saw a couple of GIs in their armored car. They were too well camouflaged to be seen when we came down the road the first time.
“Yes, we’re with CCB and we’re trying to catch up with the column,” I replied.
The sergeant, from the 83d Recon, told me I was on the right road but had taken the wrong fork. The road to the left was the main road, and the column was somewhere between this point and Paderborn. Had we continued down the road to the right another hundred yards, we would have met a German roadblock that faced our roadblock back at the Y. They were sweating each other out.
As we headed north up the main road, I contemplated what had just happened. Why had I suddenly decided to tell Wray-ford to stop and turn around? It finally dawned on me. The road that we had taken was covered with dust. A main paved highway would never be covered with dust unless no traffic had been on it for some period. Had our tank columns taken this road, the dust would have been blown to one side and we would have seen evidence of tank tracks. I was so used to this that I had taken it for granted. My thoughts had undoubtedly saved our lives. Many times, God, in his infinite mercy, has strange ways of communicating with us.
The division launched its attack at 0600 from Marburg on the morning of March 29 and continued to attack relentlessly until 2200 that evening. The division traveled in four roughly parallel columns from three to five miles apart. By 2200, elements of the division had driven 90 miles north (118 miles by road). In the history of land warfare this was the longest armored advance against an enemy in a twenty-four hour period. Even Desert Storm could not equal this record.
Taking advantage of the rugged country, the Germans put heavy roadblocks in the narrow defiles between the hills. Combat Command B, on the extreme right, was alert to possible counterattack from a German volksgrenadier division reported somewhere to our east. One CCB column suddenly found itself in a narrow defile under heavy fire from German automatic weapons and panzerfausts.
The Germans fired the panzerfausts directly down from a rock ledge some thirty feet above the highway and struck the tanks on their thin deck armor. The column was stopped cold. When our infantry tried to infiltrate around them, the Germans moved to another position and continued firing. Here was another example of how a small group of determined soldiers with small arms and panzerfausts could hold up a major column. The Germans held the column up until they were reinforced and a major engagement developed. The 104th Infantry Division finally sent reinforcements, and CCB bypassed the area. By using infantry to take over and allow the armor to leapfrog around, the advance could continue unabated. This type of maneuver went on continuously throughout the entire division area.
Combat Command B headed toward Paderborn. It was the site of the German panzer training center, which was comparable to Fort Knox in the United States, and reportedly had two training battalions of thirty to forty Panther and Tiger tanks each. There were also numerous miscellaneous units of antiaircraft troops and air force personnel who had been inducted into the infantry. This made a formidable defending force.
Major General Maurice Rose Is Killed in Action
As the battle grew closer to Paderborn, the concentration of American and German troops in a small area became more dense. Our columns constantly crossed over German columns, and in some instances our columns crossed over one another. During one such incident, Gen. Maurice Rose was trying to pass up to the task force commander’s half-track when a German tank column cut into our column. General Rose’s driver slammed on the brakes and brought the Jeep to a quick halt as it came up against the rear of a King Tiger.
Suddenly, the young German tank commander, armed with a burp gun, opened his turret hatch and started screaming at the American general. The general, his driver, and his aide got out of the Jeep and held up their hands. For some reason, the German tank commander became extremely agitated and kept pointing to Rose and hollering at him, all the while gesturing toward the general’s pistol.
In the armored force, officers carried their pistols in shoulder holsters. It was reported that Rose carried a second pistol in a hip holster on his web belt around his waist.
What happened is a matter of conjecture; however, we believe that the general thought that the tank commander wanted him to surrender his pistol. When he lowered his arms to release his belt, the German tank commander thought Rose was going to draw his pistol. In a screaming rage he fired his burp gun and struck Rose in the head, killing him instantly. As the general’s body pitched forward, Major Bellinger, his aide, and Technician Fifth Grade Shaunch, his driver, took off and under cover of darkness escaped into the woods. Major General Maurice Rose was the first and only division commander killed in World War II in the European theater.