Chapter 19: The Gates of the Vosges
Initial DOGFACE planning had provided for limited diversionary attacks by the two Allied corps on either side of Brooks’ VI Corps, namely, XV Corps in the north and de Monsabert’s II Corps in the south. The lack of supplies and the general exhaustion of both units had prevented these supporting attacks from taking place. However, by late October both Devers and Patch believed that the time for launching the two secondary efforts had arrived. The gains made by the VI Corps had begun to expose its flanks, as the episode of the lost battalion had so clearly pointed out; at the same time, the concentration of the Nineteenth Army’s reserves on the VI Corps’ front had correspondingly weakened the defenses facing the U.S. XV and the French II Corps. Moreover, both of the flanking Allied corps were somewhat rested and had been able to improve their manpower and supply situation during the past weeks. Attacks by either or both of the corps might take some pressure off Brooks’ forces in the center, allowing them to reach their Meurthe River line objectives before DOGFACE ran out of steam. In addition, Devers believed that a general advance by all three corps would place them in a better geographical position for the start of the larger 6th Army Group offensive still scheduled for mid-November.
Planning
In the north the objective of the XV Corps’ supporting attack was the small city of Baccarat, a railroad and highway hub six miles northwest of Raon-l’Etape. The rapid seizure of the Meurthe River town before the Germans could move reinforcements northward would accomplish two objectives. First, Baccarat would give the XV Corps an alternate route of advance through the approaches to the Saverne Gap. Second, possession of the town would also give the VI Corps a bridgehead over the Meurthe. From Baccarat, Brooks could outflank the German Meurthe River line (the Vosges Foothill Position) and send forces south through Raon-l’Etape and the surrounding hill masses, known to the local inhabitants as “the gates of the Vosges” (Map 24).
To accomplish this task, General Haislip, the XV Corps commander, ordered Leclerc’s 2nd Armored Division to isolate the area by cutting the
Map 24: 6th Army Group Plan of Attack, November 1944.
main roads north and east of Baccarat, including the southeastern section of N-59 leading to Raon-l’Etape, and then to occupy the town itself.1 Leclerc’s command was to begin its offensive, planned as a short, two-day affair, on 31 October.
On VI Corps’ southern flank, a French II Corps demonstration by the 3rd Algerian Division was to start on 3 November and last for three days. General de Monsabert, commanding the II Corps, welcomed the opportunity to take some offensive action after having been relegated to a defensive role in mid-October. Brig. Gen. Augustin Guillaume, commanding the 3rd Algerian Infantry Division, was also pleased. German artillery had been harassing his main supply routes in the Vagney–Sapois area, and a few limited objective attacks would, he felt, push German artillery observers out of the nearby hills and end the nuisance. A limited push north would also put his units on better terrain for further advances.
However, General de Lattre, commanding the First French Army, had serious misgivings.2 Any supplies and troops consumed by the effort would obviously detract from his buildup opposite Belfort. Moreover, de Lattre doubted that much could be accomplished. The division and attached FFI units held a twelve-mile front in rough, forested, rain-sodden or snow-laden terrain; de Monsabert would have difficulty concentrating sufficient resources of his own to launch a meaningful diversion. Contributing to de Lattre’s uneasiness was the knowledge that the relatively fresh and strong (14,000 troops) 269th Volksgrenadier Division from Norway had begun to take over from the depleted 338th Division in the area south of Gerardmer.3 But the French Army commander hoped that a limited attack by his II Corps would at least keep the Nineteenth Army’s attention focused on the Vosges front and away from the Belfort Gap sector. In the end, at the urgings of Patch and Devers, he reluctantly drew upon his general reserve and provided Guillaume’s division with a combat command of the French 5th Armored Division, the Shock Battalion, much of the artillery of the 1st and 5th Armored Divisions, a tank destroyer battalion, and an infantry battalion from the 4th Moroccan Mountain Division. From his own resources General de Monsabert added an infantry battalion from the French 1st Infantry Division still located south of the Algerians.
General Patch and Maj. Gen. Edward H. Brooks.
The Attack in the North
Unconcerned with French problems in the south, Leclerc’s 2nd Armored Division launched the XV Corps’ set-piece attack from assembly areas in the Mondon forest southeast of Lunéville at daybreak on 31 October, supported by four battalions of corps artillery,4 and by the artillery of the XV Corps’ new 44th Division. The 21st Panzer Division, responsible for the defense of Baccarat and environs, was caught by surprise. The Germans knew that the rolling, generally open terrain north and northwest of Baccarat was, in dry weather, suited to armored warfare, but on 31 October most of the area was a morass of flooded streams, water-covered roads, and mud. However, Leclerc was convinced that by keeping to the upper slopes of the low hills and ridges leading to Baccarat he could maneuver his armor in a reasonably effective manner.
Leclerc’s optimism, especially in the face of weakened 21st Panzer Division defenses, proved well founded. Moreover, the 2nd Armored Division’s staff had done its homework well. With bright cerise cloth panels and pennants boldly displayed for identification purposes, the French armored columns swept southeastward across a four-mile front. By early afternoon his left column had cut Route N-435 about four miles northeast of Baccarat and had then gone on to clear the town of Merviller, a few miles to the south. Meanwhile, his right-wing units had eliminated a long-troublesome German strongpoint at Aizerailles, on the Meurthe River and Route N-59 about three miles northwest of Baccarat. Late in the day French armor drove into the eastern half of the isolated town against only scattered resistance. By 1000 the next day, 1 November, CCD of the 2nd Armored Division had cleared Baccarat and in the process seized an intact bridge over the Meurthe River.
On the same day CCV, attacking from the northern edge of the Mondon forest, occupied Ogeviller—on Route N-4 about seven miles north of Baccarat—which had formerly been a strongpoint on the boundary between First and Nineteenth Armies. The French pressed on another mile
and a half along N-4 to take Herbeviller; they then moved southeast along the west bank of the small La Blette River and cleared Montigny, on La Blette and Route N-435 about six miles northeast of Baccarat. The heaviest fighting of the day took place at Vacqueville, on a railroad spur line a mile and a half east of N-435 at Merviller. Here 21st Panzer Division infantry, supported by five tanks, held out until 1730, withdrawing only after the French knocked out three of the German armored vehicles. Meanwhile, CCD opened Route N-59 between Aizerailles and Baccarat, probed southwest along N-435 toward Rambervillers to establish contact with VI Corps’ 117th Cavalry Squadron, and sent patrols out southeast of Baccarat along Route N-59.
By dusk on 1 November, the French 2nd Armored Division had thus accomplished its DOGFACE support mission. The division adopted a generally defensive posture and waited for VI Corps units to take over in the Baccarat–Merviller sector. The two-day exercise had cost the 2nd Armored Division approximately 20 men killed and 100 wounded, while equipment losses included 7 medium tanks, 2 light tanks, 6 half-tracks, and 1 tank destroyer. The division captured about 550 German troops and estimated that it had killed over 200 more; known German matériel losses included six medium tanks and fifteen 88-mm. guns.5 In addition, General Spragins’ 44th Infantry Division, taking advantage of confusion in the German defenses caused by the French armored division’s attack, pushed two miles farther east into the sector north of the Vezouse River, securing rising ground and driving back elements of the 533rd Volksgrenadier Division.
German Reorganization
Changes in Wiese’s Nineteenth Army command structure had also contributed to the German dislocation in the Baccarat area. On 28 October the LVIII Panzer Corps headquarters, controlling the southern divisions of Army Group G ‘s First Army, received orders to redeploy northward to the zone of Army Group B.6 To replace the departing panzer corps headquarters, Army Group G directed the Nineteenth Army to transfer von Gilsa’s LXXXIX Corps headquarters to the First Army. Unable to obtain a suitable replacement for von Gilsa’s command, General Wiese had to shift the zone of Thumm’s LXIV Corps northward to take over the LXXXIX Corps sector. The new LXIV Corps front was about twenty-three miles wide and extended from Domevre, on Route N-4 about three miles north of Montigny, to Saulcy-sur-Meurthe, three miles south of St. Die. Both Petersen’s IV Luftwaffe Field Corps and Kniess’ LXXXV Corps also had to extend their boundaries northward, leaving the IV Luftwaffe Field Corps with a front of over twenty-five miles from Saulcy south to Route N-66 at Le Thillot; here it tied its defenses
into units of the LXXXV Corps, still holding in front of the Belfort Gap.7
These command and control changes had become effective between 30 October and 1 November, a critical period for both attackers and defenders. On 31 October, with the attack of the French 2nd Armored Division well along, it became obvious that the Nineteenth Army could neither counterattack nor hold; Wiese therefore obtained permission from Balck to draw the army’s right wing back to the general line of Montigny, Vacqueville, and Bertrichamps, conceding the loss of Baccarat. Wiese hoped that hastily assembled, weak reserves8 could help the 21st Panzer Division hold a new line, but on 1 November Leclerc’s armor overran the line before it could be established, except temporarily, at Vacqueville. The 21st Panzer Division’s right now withdrew east of La Blette River; the center moved into rising, wooded ground east of Baccarat and Bertrichamps; and the left, under constant pressure from the VI Corps’ 45th Division, held on to the mountains surrounding Raon-l’Etape, which, Wiese was still convinced, was the VI Corps’ major objective.
Uncharacteristically, Balck had acquiesced in the loss of important terrain without insisting that Nineteenth Army mount an immediate counterattack to regain the lost ground. Then, on 1 November, when the 21st Panzer Division failed to hold along the Montigny–Vacqueville–Bertrichamps line, Balck reluctantly approved the withdrawal of the Nineteenth Army’s right and center into the forward Weststellung defenses, the Vosges Foothill Position. This withdrawal, later hastened by attacks of the French II Corps in the south, entailed a major redeployment along the Nineteenth Army’s entire Vosges front, from Domevre south almost 40 miles to La Bresse in the upper Moselotte River valley, which was to be finalized by 15 November. By that date Balck hoped that construction of the defensive installations of the Vosges Foothill Position would be completed.
Either dissatisfied with tactical preparations or frustrated by the increasingly dismal situation facing him, Balck, the Army Group G commander, also announced a scorched-earth policy for the areas to be vacated by the Nineteenth Army. Balck’s orders directed that, by 10 November, all able-bodied men between the ages of sixteen and sixty were to be evacuated to the east bank of the Rhine for use as forced labor. Women, children, and men infirm or over sixty were to be herded into relatively safe areas; and each village, town, and city was to be completely destroyed as the German troops left. Apparently not trusting his regular army officers to carry out the harsh measures, or perhaps not wanting to impose the burden on tactical units, Balck arranged for the local SS9 to undertake
the necessary actions. The SS lacked demolitions and expertise in their use, however, and relied mainly on fire for destructive purposes, leaving the scorched-earth program subject to the vagaries of wind and weather.
The Attack in the South
Balck’s orders of 1 November had scarcely been distributed when de Monsabert’s II Corps launched its DOGFACE supporting attack at 0800 on 3 November, after an hour-long artillery preparation.10 Again the Germans were caught more or less by surprise. Terrain and weather conditions were unfavorable for the attacker, but the 269th Volksgrenadier Division, still deploying across part of the IV Luftwaffe Field Corps front, had been unable to organize completely the defenses of its new sector.
On the left, elements of the reinforced 3rd Algerian Division gained only about a mile after fighting for three days in the dense, upland forests around Le Tholy. In the center, astride the axis of Route D-23 east of Sapois, infantry units advanced over two miles along dominating terrain north and south of the highway, penetrating some Weststellung positions, while supporting armor pushed a mile farther down the road. To the south, other French troops advanced only about a mile eastward from positions held since mid-October, but they managed to occupy high ground overlooking La Bresse and the Moselotte valley, through which ran the key German north-south lines of communication.
The initial German reaction to the 3rd Algerian Division’s attack was limited to heavy artillery and mortar fire, but on the evening of 5 November the 269th Division began a series of counterattacks that lasted through the 7th. The cessation of the counterattacks was probably fortunate for the French, because by the end of the day all the reinforcing units that de Lattre had made available to de Monsabert were on their way back to the Belfort Gap front. The 3rd Algerian Division again went on the defensive, as did the Germans, who feared that the French were only pausing for a brief rest before renewing the attacks.
The limited French gains in the south had not come cheaply. During the attack, the 3rd Algerian Division and its attachments lost approximately 150 men killed, 670 wounded, and 35 missing. Nevertheless, the effects of de Monsabert’s support operations were obvious. Concerned about the threat to the sector, Balck and Wiese were forced to keep substantial strength in the southern Vosges area, which, because of the rugged terrain, probably could have been held by a much smaller force. They were thus unable to deploy more units to either the Baccarat, St. Die, or Belfort sectors. But the true measure of both de Monsabert’s and Leclerc’s actions was the degree to which Brooks’ VI Corps could take advantage of the resulting dismay caused in the German ranks to complete its push to the Meurthe.
VI Corps Resumes the Attack
With the French support operations under way, Brooks pressed his VI Corps forces forward in an effort to gain all DOGFACE objectives in time to give his three tired divisions some rest before the army group offensive began in mid-November. On the far left, during the opening days of November, the 117th Cavalry Squadron, with the aid of the 3rd Battalion, 36th Engineers, completed the relief of 2nd French Armored Division units in the Merviller–Baccarat–Bertrichamps area, and was soon joined by elements of the 45th Division’s 179th Infantry. South of Baccarat, however, both Eagles and O’Daniel had a hard time penetrating the strengthened German defenses.
Opposite Raon-l’Etape, the 45th Division’s 180th and 157th regiments continued their advance to the Meurthe River through the Rambervillers forest and along Route N-59A. By 2 November the 180th Infantry managed to reach the hamlet of St. Benoit, about halfway between Rambervillers and Raon-l’Etape, but was unable to advance much farther. A few miles northeast of St. Benoit, Route N-59A—now no more than a narrow mountain road separating the Ste. Barbe and Rambervillers forests—rose to a height of nearly 1,500 feet, passing over a divide between the Meurthe and Mortagne watersheds at the Chipote Pass. There, about four miles short of Raon-l’Etape, units of the 21st Panzer Division made a final stand. Unable to force the pass, some elements of the 180th Infantry moved north into the Ste. Barbe forest, while the entire 157th turned south, guiding on Route N-424, a secondary road to the Meurthe. In the north, small detachments of the 180th Infantry emerged from the forest on 3 November at the west bank of the Meurthe River almost two miles above the bridge to Raon-l’Etape. But their rapid excursion proved exceptional. In the center the rest of the 180th remained stalled at the pass, and in the south the 157th Infantry progressed scarcely a mile eastward along Route N-424. With their initial energy spent, the 45th Division foot soldiers again began to show the now familiar signs of extreme fatigue that had characterized the entire Vosges campaign.
On the other side, the German defenders were in worse condition. Unable to halt the 45th Division for long and with all his reserves committed, General Wiese finally obtained permission from Army Group G to pull the left of the 21st Panzer Division and the right of the neighboring 716th Division back almost to the Meurthe River valley. At the same time, Balck reluctantly and temporarily transferred the 951st Grenadiers of the First Army’s 361st Volksgrendier Division to the Nineteenth Army as a final emergency reserve. The Army Group G commander at first expected Wiese to use the 951st Grenadiers to free elements of the 21st Panzer Division for counterattacks in the Baccarat-Raon-l’Etape area. However, lack of time and means, pressure from the Americans, and muddy ground made it impossible for the panzer division to undertake any offensive measures. Nevertheless, the 951st Grenadier Regiment, which reached Raon-l’Etape late on 4 November, immediately made its
Maj. Gen. Withers A. Burress.
presence felt, halting renewed attacks by the 180th Infantry along Route N-59A on 4 and 5 November. But the relief was only momentary. South of N-59A, the 157th Infantry slowly continued to labor through the Rambervillers forests toward the Meurthe, while north of the mountain highway the 45th Division pushed additional forces across the Ste. Barbe wilderness. More important, since 2 November, Eagles’ tired division had slowly been reinforced by troops from the fresh U.S. 100th Infantry Division—the first of the three new divisions that Eisenhower had promised Devers back in September, and also the first new American division that had reached the Seventh Army since its campaign in France began.
Operation DOGFACE Ends
On 9 November Maj. Gen. Withers A. Burress, commanding the 100th Infantry Division, formally assumed control of the zone from General Eagles. To all intents and purposes, the 45th Division had ended its role in the DOGFACE offensive. Although short of its final objective line, the division had nearly pushed the Germans out of the Ste. Barbe and Rambervillers forests, placing the few German units still on the west bank of the Meurthe River in an extremely awkward defensive position. In addition, with help from the French 2nd Armored Division and the 117th Cavalry Squadron, the division had moved forces onto the far side of the Meurthe, outflanking the German defensive positions of Raon-l’Etape proper. Subsequently, the 100th Division finished clearing the forested hills overlooking the western valley of the Meurthe north and south of Raon-l’Etape by 11 November; however, the new unit was unable to eliminate a final German strongpoint directly opposite the town.
In the VI Corps center, the 3rd Division had also resumed its advance toward St. Die during the first week of November. On the division’s left, the 15th Infantry moved northeast from La Bourgonce area and began a slow, methodical advance toward the Meurthe. Much of the ground was rolling and open, and the 716th Division offered only minor resistance at various small villages and hamlets, belatedly launching only a single genuine counterattack, which proved ineffective. By 9 November the regiment
reached positions along rising ground overlooking the Meurthe valley, successfully completing its DOGFACE assignments.
In the Magdeleine woods, the 30th Infantry advanced abreast of the 15th, clearing the woods and reaching the west bank of the Meurthe River only about a mile north of St. Die by 6 November. On the regiment’s right, the 7th Infantry, battered and exhausted, finally broke through Le Haut Jacques Pass on 4 November, but only after having been forced to clear most of the wooded area just west of N-420. Hill 616, east of the pass, fell to the combined efforts of the 7th and 30th Infantry regiments on 5 November, after which the remaining elements of the 16th Volksgrendier Division began falling back on St. Die. By the evening of 9 November the 7th Infantry had also cleared the wooded area immediately south of St. Die, and had sent patrols a few miles down Route D-31 into the Taintrux valley. By that time, elements of the 30th Infantry had marched out of the southern edge of the Magdeleine woods to take responsibility for the road junction of N-420 and D-31, leaving the battered 7th to protect the division’s right flank.
Relief for the tired 3rd Division was on its way. Between 9 and 11 November the 409th and 410th Infantry regiments of the fresh but untried 103rd Infantry Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. Charles C. Haffner, Jr., began replacing the 7th and 30th Infantry. The 103rd Division was the second of the three divisions that Eisenhower had redirected from northern France to Marseille, where the 103rd had begun unloading on 20 October. Haffner officially took over the 3rd Division’s sector on 12 November, allowing O’Daniel’s weary forces a brief respite.
Although St. Die remained in German hands, the 3rd Division, with the impetus of its early attack through the other VI Corps divisions, had reached the west bank of the Meurthe and, more important, had secured Route N-420 as a main supply route all the way from Brouvelieures almost to St. Die. But the cost had been high. From 20 October through 10 November, battle casualties within the 7th Infantry regiment alone totaled approximately 150 men killed and 820 wounded, while the unit captured about 1,100 Germans. The 3rd Division’s 7th and 30th regiments quickly went into reserve, resting and beginning to prepare for the main November offensive. However, since Brooks had designated the 103rd Division’s third regiment, the 411th Infantry, as the corps’ reserve, the 15th Infantry remained in holding positions along the west side of the Meurthe valley north of St. Die.
While the two fresh divisions had arrived just in time for Eagles’ and O’Daniel’s tired units, Dahlquist’s workhorse 36th was to have no such respite. Although the DOGFACE territorial objectives of the 36th Division had been less significant than those of other VI Corps forces—the actual task of the 36th was to secure the corps’ long right flank—the terrain it had faced and the opposition it had encountered were, if anything, more difficult. Throughout early November the attached 442nd and the organic 141st regiments tried to clear the central portion of the Domaniale de
Champ forest from Les Rouges Eaux on Route N-420 south to La Houssière. The two regiments finally occupied positions overlooking the upper Neune River valley, but they still faced a medley of German forces—mixed elements of the 933rd Grenadiers, the 202nd Mountain Battalion, and various fortress units from the Weststellung—holding strong defensive positions in the forests between La Houssière and St. Leonard and in the Taintrux valley. The 143rd and 142nd Infantry regiments, north to south, remained in holding positions along the 36th Division’s right from the Neune River valley near Biffontaine south some ten miles to the vicinity of Le Tholy, a thin defensive line that was beginning to make both Dahlquist and Brooks a bit nervous.
The Germans, however, had no thought of offensive action and were more concerned about their own flanks, fearing that a major Allied penetration to St. Leonard or Corcieux might precipitate a rapid American advance along the relatively good roads that led north to St. Die, south to Gerardmer, and east across the Vosges to Colmar on the Alsatian plains. The Germans therefore defended the area stubbornly. From 1 to 4 November, determined German infantry resistance, heavy artillery and mortar fire, miserable weather, flooded streams, inadequate air support, and the now ever-present seas of French mud severely limited 36th Division advances. The Domaniale de Champ forest network had even fewer roads than its northern neighbors, and its flooded dirt avenues and trails mired vehicles and foot soldiers alike, making it nearly impossible to bring up supplies or to maneuver troops with any degree of dispatch. The cold, wet weather took an increasing toll on the mostly Hawaiian-born 442nd infantrymen; combat losses, although heavy, were greatly outnumbered by nonbattle casualties—trench foot, severe colds, flu, and pneumonia being the most common illnesses. By 7 November the 442nd was down to an average of thirty effectives in each rifle company, and one battalion had to be withdrawn from the front that day. By the 9th, when the rest of the regiment came out of the forward lines, one company could muster only seventeen riflemen fit for duty, and another only four. The 442nd was virtually incapable of further operations.11
Replacing the dissipated 442nd, the somewhat rested 142nd Infantry reentered the forest and by 8 November had pushed through the Taintrux valley, only about a mile and a half short of the 7th Infantry’s advance from the opposite direction. During the night of 9–10 November, as part of Balck’s general withdrawal, the remaining German units pulled most of their troops east of D-31, allowing units of the 142nd regiment to occupy La Houssière unopposed and to push over a mile farther east. There Operation DOGFACE ended for the tired 36th Division, well short of its final objective, the high ground overlooking
Company L, 142nd Regiment, 36th Division, pulls back to rear in snowfall, near Langefosse, France, November 1944.
St. Leonard. Nevertheless the right flank of the VI Corps appeared secure, and in balance the stubborn incursions of the 36th had attracted much German attention, thereby diverting major units that might have been deployed in the St. Die–Raon-l’Etape area to jam up the main advance.
Operation DOGFACE gave the VI Corps strong positions opposite the Meurthe River line, the so-called Vosges Foothill Position, and thus the offensive had achieved its stated purpose. Balck and Wiese perhaps were also satisfied, for the stubborn German defense, coupled with adverse weather and terrain, had sapped the strength of Brooks’ infantry regiments, units that had been in almost continuous operations since 15 August. Certainly by the end of DOGFACE, none of the three “veteran” American divisions looked forward to another major offensive, especially one which might send them ten miles farther across the Vosges through even more precipitous terrain. Yet, as Truscott might have reminded them, the sooner they started, the weaker the German defense would be; and this time the VI Corps would have welcome reinforcements, including new infantry and armored formations that would almost double its size and striking power.
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