While Ilvanich and the rangers of Company A secured the autobahn bridge east of Niederjossa, the lead elements of the 4th Armored Division prepared to make their next leap forward. Like a great Slinky toy moving across the face of Germany, each night the Tenth Corps would spring up, stretch out, move forward, and then collapse on itself further north than the night before. While that simple analogy might make Malin's "March to the Sea" understandable, the actual complex process of moving a corps with over 75,000 soldiers and 30,000 vehicles defied the ability of any one person to really understand the process. For it entailed more than simply lining up vehicles and putting them on the road.
In the first place, the Tenth Corps had to be prepared to fight. Combat maneuver units, armored cavalry squadrons, tank battalions, and mechanized infantry battalions marching in the lead, on the flanks, and in the rear of the corps, had to be arranged so that they could bull through a blocking position or turn and defend the rest of the corps from a thrust from a German unit. This requirement dictated the order and manner in which combat support units followed. The march tables of artillery units had to conform to the movements of the tank and infantry units so as to allow the artillery units to rapidly set up and fire in support of the combat maneuver units if they made contact with German units determined to fight. The result was that the Tenth Corps, instead of moving forward as one large Slinky toy, in reality consisted of thousands of tiny company-and platoon-sized Slinkys. Moving at different times along different routes and to different locations, these separate companies and platoons tried hard to be at the right place at the right time without ensnaring with each other, a feat that they achieved most of the time but not always.
Mixed in with the combat maneuver units were the ubiquitous engineer units, ready to jump forward in front of the combat maneuver units to bridge a river or to clear an obstacle. To protect the ground elements from attack by German aircraft, which already were flying over the long columns with great regularity, were air defense units armed with heat-seeking and radar-guided missiles such as the Stinger and the Patriot. These units, relying on a system of interlocking early-warning radar, had to conform both to the needs of combat maneuver units and the leapfrogging forward elements of the radar network to cover the entire corps.
Within the complex and intricate layering of combat and combat support units were the combat service support elements. Signal units like the air defense radar units had to leap forward in well-planned jumps so as to maintain the communications between units and their superior headquarters. Supply and transportation units, collectively known as trains at every level from battalion to corps, had to move forward to refuel and resupply all elements of the corps, to include themselves. This process was extremely elaborate, made more so by the fact that the entire corps was moving up through Germany like a great bubble. Supplies and fuel, therefore, had to flow in all directions, out from the center and not just from the rear forward as was normally practiced. This complication alone made the already challenging task of meeting the needs of combat and combat support units while the support units themselves were moving a task that defied description.
Mixed in with the supply and transportation units as part of the trains were the medical and maintenance units, one responsible for retrieving and tending to wounded soldiers and the other for recovering and repairing, if possible, the damaged or broken-down vehicles and equipment left in the wake of the advancing corps. Like the supply units, the task of these elements of the trains was complicated by the fact that this was not a normal textbook operation. Neither the hospitals nor the maintenance units would be able to stop and fully set up their operations. They, like everyone else, would be in an almost constant state of movement or preparation for movement. This alone made it impossible to provide all the necessary services that they were capable of. As with every other support element, the need to deal with the evacuation of wounded in all directions, not just from front to rear, made their tasks more arduous and demanding.
That, however, was not the most difficult part of the operation for these dedicated professionals, both in the medical and maintenance fields. The standing orders issued before the beginning of the march established demanding criteria to be used in deciding which wounded soldiers and damaged vehicles would be worked on and kept with the corps and which would be left behind. Those wounded whose lives or limbs would be endangered if kept with the Tenth Corps would be left in the hands of German medical services at the nearest hospital. Damaged or broken-down vehicles and equipment would be abandoned and destroyed if deemed unrepairable in the time available or if parts were not available. While it could be easily argued that there was no comparing the two, wounded personnel and disabled vehicles, the dedication of the officers and soldiers in the maintenance units to the accomplishment of their duties is no less real and pressing than that of their counterparts in the medical units.
While Ilvanich and his rangers worked to clear the corps' line of march, the personnel of the 553rd Field Hospital prepared for another night of aimless wandering. Hilary Cole was charged that night with supervising the transfer of three Tenth Corps soldiers injured in traffic accidents over to the Germans. Leading the stretcher bearers carrying the wounded personnel from the ward tent of their field hospital set up in the parking lot of a German civilian hospital into the emergency room of the German hospital, Cole pondered the wisdom of leaving Americans behind. Though all three Americans had sustained internal injuries in separate incidents that required a recovery period of rest and care that a moving field hospital could not provide, the idea of leaving fellow countrymen in the hands of "The Enemy" bothered Cole.
Leading the small parade of litter bearers and wounded, Cole was greeted by a German nurse whose English was about as bad as Cole's German was. The German nurse, an older heavy-set woman with a round face and dressed in an immaculate white uniform, was seated behind a counter when Cole and her charges entered. After shouting out something in German to Cole that she did not understand, the German nurse stared at Cole for several seconds, looking her up and down with obvious disdain. Cole, like everyone else in her unit, had been unable to take proper care of herself or her personal needs. Moving about in what had appeared to her and the other nurses of the 553rd to be a totally random fashion, without ever knowing where they were going or when they would get there, unable to fully set up their hospital and the living areas for the staff, left Cole looking and feeling miserable, dirty, and haggard.
Realizing that everyone in the hospital was staring at them, half unsure what to do and half disgusted, Cole decided that she needed to assert herself. As much as she hated the idea of leaving her wounded here in the hands of foreigners, she knew in her heart that it was the right thing to do. The fact that she couldn't even properly care for herself made her realize how foolish it would be to saddle the 553rd with severely injured soldiers. When it became obvious that the Germans were not going to make the first move, Cole motioned for the stretcher bearers to set the wounded down, took off her helmet, and walked over to the counter where the big German nurse sat. Though she suspected that the German nurse wouldn't understand the words, Cole hoped that she would understand the meaning. Supplemented with motions of her hand, Cole tried to explain who she was and what they were there for. "I am a nurse. Those soldiers are injured and we cannot take them with us. We have an arrangement with your hospital to leave them. Who do I see to make the transfer?"