March 14, 1945 — Almost ready to attack Germany and end WWII
March 14, 2025Promptly at 0100 hours on March 15, 1945, the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 30th Infantry pushed off towards the Siegfried Line. Ten battalions of artillery simultaneously opened fire, plus an additional six battalions of XV Corps artillery providing reinforcing fire. The initial barrage lasted twenty minutes.[1]
When the American battalions advanced, they ran into the worse minefields yet, which inflicted heavy casualties.
One platoon, slogging through a muddy farm corral, had nineteen men killed or wounded trying to find a way through.
A call went out to men from the A&P Platoon—known as “sappers”—to clear paths through the dangerous minefields and the gummy, sticky ground created by recent rains.
Under the illumination of German flares, Phil could see the guys from his previous platoon, still with many of the “old men” that had served with him, probing every inch of ground with trench knives, gently working the blades at an angle in the dirt, hoping to hit only the sides of the mines.
The sappers came upon many devilish mines handmade from cottage cheese-type crocks and sealed with wax. The only metal was the detonator, which was too small to be picked up by their mine detectors.
Finding and clearing each minefield on the Siegfried Line was painstakingly difficult and extraordinarily dangerous work that had to be one of the war’s nastiest jobs, knowing that each probe could be a man’s last.
The men worked day and night on what had to be one of the war’s nastiest jobs. As they inched their way forward, Phil and his men covered them with suppressing fire, calling in murderous artillery when needed.
The minefields, though dense, did not extend for more than a mile in depth. The anti-personnel mines significantly slowed the advance, but as soon as the sappers outlined several clear paths through a minefield, marking them with a band of fluorescent tape on each side, Phil and his Company L quickly moved out.
Tanks and howitzers were employed to great advantage by the 30th in detonating the remaining mines to widen the paths even more, which helped evacuate the wounded.
As for the troublesome anti-tank ditches, armored bulldozers filled in the trenches with dirt so that tanks and self-propelled guns could follow.
From the outset, the two attack battalions, the 1st on the left and the 3rd on the right, drew a barrage of automatic fire from the pillboxes and a virtual storm of machine gun and small arms fire from narrow gaps in the minefields.
On top of that, hefty, casualty-inflicting fire from self-propelled artillery either raked or rained down on them.
All enemy fire was sighted to cover the avenues of approach with a web of death coming in all directions from the front of the Siegfried Line. Division artillery, as always, played an essential part in the initial attack—from 0100 hours until daylight, March 15, the battalions fired a hundred concentrations in support of the attacking infantry units, in addition to their massive opening barrage.
It would soon be first light. Then the men would be able to see better, but could also be seen.
~~~~~
[1] Larimore, At First Light, 214.
[2] Ibid, 2114-215.
Learn more about my book about my father’s heroics and exploits at Amazon’s First Light page here. You can also read more of my WWII blogs here as well!
© Copyright WLL, INC. 2025.
