36. The Last Kilometer

1 May 1945
VE Day for the Tigers

From Nichols:

At Ulm, they had turned south once more and, attacking into the rugged Alps on two parallel routes, [the Tigers] had reached Mittenwald on one route and had captured Imst in Austria after crossing the border at Fussen on the other when the war ended.

Prior to April 30, a final Tenth Armored Division Field Order was issued which called for the capture of Innsbruck, Austria. However, the Germans had already blown out great chunk of the road…. [T]he Innsbruck Field Order had to be abandoned…. So intent were the Tigers in grinding out the last mile, that they even tried to roll their tanks over the railroad tracks. The going was extremely difficult, however, as the steel rails did not match the width of the tank tracks…. The last kilometer was now a matter of record anyway. The big fight was over. And Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in the opinion of the Armoraiders, was a fine place to end the war on this, the last day of April of 1945. The final major battle operation of the Tiger Division consumed seven weeks. This period was marked with continuous combat, sleepless days and nights, sizzling speed, strained nerves, rain, snow, mud, and cold. But at last, the ordeal was over.

Elsewhere in the European Theater:

April 29: Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun exchange wedding vows in Adolf Hitler's underground Berlin bunker.

General Vietinghoff, the German commander of Axis forces in Italy, signs documents surrendering to the Allies.

April 30: The newly wed Hitlers commit suicide in the Berlin bunker. Joseph and Magda Goebbels follow suit, murdering their six children before taking their own lives.

Soviet Union forces capture the Reichstag.

May 1: Admiral Karl Dönitz, Adolf Hitler's handpicked successor, establishes a government in Flensburg to control Nazi Germany following Adolf Hitler's suicide.

May 2: Some 490,000 German soldiers in Italy lay down their weapons, honoring the terms of the unconditional surrender signed by Vietinghoff three days earlier.

May 3: Red Army units link up throughout Berlin as German resistance ends, completing the capture of the capital of the Third Reich.

Hamburg, Germany, and Innsbruck, Austria, fall to the Allies.

May 4: German troops surrender en masse throughout northern Germany and the Netherlands.

May 5: German and Allied officials meet in Reims, France, to reach agreement on the terms of Germany's capitulation.

The German army lays down its weapons throughout Bavaria.

U.S. forces liberate French and Austrian officials -- including premiers Reynaud, Daladier, Blum, and Schuschnigg -- from captivity in Austria.

35. End of April Report

After Action Report
80th Medical Battalion
10th Armored Division
1 April – 30 April 1945

There were 31 officers and 364 enlisted men, four less than in March. During the month three enlisted men of the battalion were killed, two officers and four enlisted men were wounded and four were reported missing. Twenty-one reinforcements were assigned to the battalion.

At all three clearing stations of the battalion in April 1945 there were:

2267 admissions (nearly 600 less than March)
153 were returned to duty
19 died in the stations
1987 were transferred and
9 remained in station on 31 March

These numbers were lower than March, indicative of the overwhelming force of the Tigers in the movements of April and the decreasing efficiency of the German troops. More than half of the admissions for the month occurred by the 12th. Captain Loomis commented that the figures are the sum total “of those of the clearing stations and include personnel of units attached or supporting the division and enemy personnel cleared through division medical installations as well as 10th Armored Division personnel.

It was reported that providing both expendable and non-expendable supplies was adequate during the period. In addition, medical evacuation channels functioned efficiently during the period.

Recommendations:
(1) That medical personnel supporting combat troops not be assigned to screen and process enemy hospital installations, but that this chore be given to a static unit.
(2) That the replacement of medical officers and medical administrative officers be expedited in the case of units actively engaged in combat.

Fredrick D. Loomis
Captain, MAC.,
Battalion S-3

34. A Liberating Unit

According to the US Holocaust Museum:

 As it [The Tenth Armored] drove into the heartland of Bavaria, the "Tiger" division overran one of the many subcamps of Dachau in the Landsberg area on April 27, 1945.

The 10th Armored Division was recognized as a liberating unit by the US Army's Center of Military History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1985.
-Link

It seems there were six camps in the Landsberg area. First, some of what  is reported at Wikipedia:

The American forces allowed news media to record the atrocities, and ordered local German civilians and guards to reflect upon the dead and bury them bare-handed. After the liberation of the camp it became a displaced person camp. Consisting primarily of Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union and the Baltic states, it developed into one of the most influential DP camps in the Sh'erit ha-Pletah. It housed a Yiddish newspaper (the Yiddishe Zeitung), religious schools, and organizations to promote Jewish religious observance. Tony Bennett was one of the soldiers who liberated the camp.
-Link

U.S. Soldier at Gate of Landsberg. USHM

I gather that the 103rd Infantry Division was one of the major units. Here's some of their report:

From REPORT AFTER ACTION: The Story of the 103D Infantry Division, pp. 131-135

At Landsberg the men of the 103d Infantry Division discovered what they had been fighting against. They found six concentration camps where victims of the super race had died by the thousands of atrocities, starvation, and exposure. The grounds of the camp were littered with the skeletonized bodies of Jews, Poles, Russians, French, and un-Nazified Germans. Every evidence was that they were only the latest of untold thousands who had suffered and died in these six concentration camps, a few among the hundreds which dotted Grossdeutschland. German civilians who were forced by the 411th guards to pick up these wasted bodies for decent burial sniveled that they had not known such things existed. They had not known, yet they had spent their lives in this town of 30,000 which was ringed by six horror camps.
-Link

The 103rd, it should be noted, was, along with the 44th Infantry and the Tenth Armored, working together on a combined spearhead, the Tenth's armor leading the way.

Some videos are archived at the US Holocaust Museum. Here's a link to one of them.

From all I can find, it would appear that my Dad's company was most likely with CC B during this time and in all probability was not part of the liberation of the camp. I wouldn't be surprised, however, that when the Division was reunited all kinds of stories were shared. It is possible however that he was with CC R, the reserve command, which was near Landsberg during this time.

Nichols, interestingly, does not appear to discuss the concentration camp liberation in Impact. He does relate a story of liberating a POW camp where some former Tigers were held following Bastogne. I may continue to explore this. With my Dad married to a Jewish woman from Brooklyn, I would venture a guess that he may have had some interest in this.

33. To the Danube

This is part of a series following my father's 10th Armored Division in World War II seventy years ago. He was a medic with the 80th Medical Battalion assigned to the 10th Armored, part of Patton’s Third Army.

The Tenth processed their 2,000 prisoners from Crailsheim and sent them to the rear. They were given a new battle assignment. They were to shift their attention and combat power toward Heilbronn where the fighting was continuing.

CC A was directed to seize Oehringen while CC B was placed in "reserve" on a two-hour alert.

12 - 15 April
When forces entered Oehringen they were met with fierce resistance. As Nichols reports it,

Nazi fanaticism was slow to die as Wehrmacht and civilians alike resisted with renewed determination.

Heavy and timed artillery bursts were ordered and the efforts prevailed with the town captured on 13 April. When all the units met with the infantry units east of Heilbronn that mission was ended.

Heilbronn, April 1945

16 - 24 April
It was now time to make the move south toward the Danube and Austria. For several days there were obstacles that acted as hidden allies of the enemy. The minefields, roadblocks and blown bridges, says Nichols, "strained the already overworked Tiger engineers' efforts to clear a path for continued advance." By April 18, things began to move and all three Combat Commands became a formidable array of six armored columns. Town after town was captured. On April 19 the terrain of steep hills and deep valleys slowed the advance but later in the day the Tigers again triumphed and forged ahead 17 miles to the Rems River.

The plateau could have been easily defended by the enemy. But the Germans were sure that the Americans would attack from the west and were thus unable to halt the advance from the north.

CC B crossed the river after seizing two bridges while, to the west CC A hit a 40 MPH pace as a result of Tigers who carried a power saw to rip through roadblocks. At Lorch they scared of an enemy plane about to land and an enemy train. The train got up steam and raced away surprised by the Tigers in the town. Movement of all Combat Commands quickly captured more territory. By April 22 all were closing in on the same target of Kircheim and burst ahead to the Danube at Ehingen.

Stuttgart was virtually surrounded. Harassment of the enemy continued. The capture of Kircheim marked the end of German resistance in the area as more than 400 prisoners were taken and, more importantly, the Stuttgart-Munich autobahn was cut. Nichols writes then,

One of the most important days in the Tenth's memorable history was April 22, the day Chamberlain's forces steamrolled to the Danube. By midnight they succeeded in capturing a bridge at Ehingen. Then on April 23 [they] destroyed a German supply column.... On April 24 the Reserve Command sped across the [Danube] and headed for Ulm. At this point the Tigers were further south than any other American unit.... The Third Reich was almost a dead government now, as allied armies to the north were inflicting terrible punishment on the beaten enemy. The Tenth Armored was no poised above the great National Redoubt, an area which the Germans claimed could never be captured by the Americans. However, this claim, along with their hopes for a "thousand Year Reich" died when the Tiger's mailed fist hit them again and for the last time to end the war in the first week of May 1945

32. The Last Days of Berlin

April 20: Adolf Hitler's 56th and last birthday is a subdued celebration in his underground headquarters: The celebration in his underground headquarters, the Führerbunker, in the Reich Chancellery Park was very subdued. The Soviet Union Army was advancing toward Berlin, and Adolf Hitler knew that the end of his Third Reich was near. Later that day, Adolf Hitler left the bunker to decorate 20 Hitler Youth, most 12 to 15 years old, for bravery in combat. He then returned to the bunker in which he had lived since January 16, 1945. Protected by 16 feet of concrete and six feet of earth, Adolf Hitler's sanctuary protected him but did not mask the sounds of Soviet shells falling closer each day.

April 21: The Soviets reach Berlin with overwhelming military power and encircled the city: With 2.5 million men, the Soviets faced one million German troops, including about 45,000 male youth and elderly. The Germans were also greatly outnumbered in artillery, tanks, and planes. "The amount of equipment deployed for the Berlin operation," a Soviet Union soldier remarked, "was so huge I simply cannot describe it and I was there." Enormous firepower was brought to bear, but the Soviets discovered that many forward German positions had been abandoned before the bombardment. The German command pulled troops tightly around Berlin for a final, doomed defense of the city.
-Link

31. On the Home and Battlefront

From my grandmother's diary in 1945:

April 12: Ruth (her daughter) called at 6 o’clock and said that President Roosevelt had died at 4:30. It was an awful shock
April 14: Listened to train bringing FDR to Washington

Sunday, April 15: Roosevelt was buried in Hyde Park, NY.

Meanwhile in the war during those four days:

April 14: The Allies march through the center of encircled German troops in the Ruhr Pocket, taking prisoners and splitting the German ranks.

The Allies launch Operation Teardrop in an effort to locate German U-boats in the North Atlantic rumored to be carrying V-2 rockets to be used against New York City.

April 14-15: Japanese imperial loyalists crush an attempted coup by hard-line military officers who, convinced that Emperor Hirohito was on the brink of surrender, had decided to seize control.

April 15: The Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, with a survivor population of 40,000, is liberated by the British Army.  

April 16: Adolf Hitler announces that he expects his officers to fight to the death. He orders summary execution for any officer who orders a retreat.

The Allied air force announces that future operations over Germany will focus on cleanup rather than strategic targets, effectively ending the air war.

30. Battle for Crailsheim

I found a book recently online that I had not seen before on the 10th Armored's months at the end of the war. Written by Dwayne Engle, son of an infantryman, Pfc. Melvin Engle it is called 162 Days and a Bronze Star. (Link to PDF) Pfc. Engle was called up in late 1944 and eventually became one of the replacements in the 10th after the Bulge. Engle was with CC B, most likely, at times, where my Dad's battalion was also assigned. The book is more concise about the days in early 1945 than Nichols and has given me some easier ways of understanding what was happening. It is clear that Engle uses Nichols and has spent considerable time putting this all together. I am grateful for his work.

Here is Engle's account of the first part of the Battle for Crailsheim:

Crailsheim was an important city to the Allies. Along with Bad Mergantheim (6 miles north of Assamstadt) and Heilbronn, it created a strong point and gateway into Bavaria. Crailsheim lay just forty miles southwest of Nurnberg and only 100 miles from Munich. CC B moved about forty miles from Assamstadt overnight to Crailsheim on muddy, pot-holed roads in order to arrive at Crailsheim evening of Sunday, April 8. They were now thirty-five miles behind actual German lines, which theoretically began at the Rhine River. On the move from Assamstadt CC B had managed to capture over 300 German soldiers, including some Hitler Youth. They killed at least that many more enemy and destroyed as much of the enemy artillery and equipment as time would allow.

In Crailsheim, the German army mounted the largest display of strength since the Battle of the Bulge the previous December. The 10th Armored cut a major German supply route known as the “Bowling Alley” to both the Germans and Allies. The supply route extended from
Crailsheim to Hollenbach, about twenty miles north. Once cut, the supply route began being used exclusively by the Allies and 10th Armored Division to supply troops already at Crailsheim. Still heavily and aggressively defended by the 17th German Panzer Division, this route was guarded by many U.S. roadblocks along its entirety.

The Battle for Crailsheim had actually begun a couple of days before when advanced divisions of the 10th Armored, including CC A, were ordered to advance on Crailsheim while CC B fought its way to Assamstadt. But recognizing its value, the Germans were desperately attempting to hold onto this city. At that point, Crailsheim was a last stand, and the German command realized that fact.

Adolph Hitler by this time had ordered that the Geneva Convention be laid aside and that every Allied prisoner of war be executed in at attempt to set an example for the German army that German soldiers would be dealt with accordingly, should they fail to turn back the advancing armies. To their credit, his orders were largely, if not wholly, ignored by the German High Command. However, Crailsheim would be defended from the 10th Armored Tigers at all costs. General Piburn would comment later that at no other time during the war in Europe had he seen so many German Messerschmitts in the air as there were over Crailsheim.

CC B continued to patrol the “Bowling Alley” between Blaufelden and Bartenstein until Tuesday, April 10. They would later realize that the German army had been concealed by the forest and was never more than one mile on either side of the road that they had been patrolling for the past several days. On Wednesday, April 11, at 7:30 a.m., CC B was ordered to assemble at Blaufelden and move directly to Kirchberg located about eight miles south.

At 3:00 p.m. in Kirchberg, CC B was told that it would lend support to the withdrawal of CC A from Crailsheim. Additional reinforcements for CC A were not available, and the current divisions were not strong enough to hold their position and counter the German offensive.
An all night movement from Kirchberg to Bartenstein positioned CC B to carry out its order of covering CC A for the withdrawal. German infantry and artillery nagged at the column during the entire night’s travel.

When CC A had retreated from Crailsheim by early morning of April 11, the Battle of Crailsheim officially ended. At dusk that day, the remaining squadrons moved safely from Crailsheim to Blaufelden.

For the 10th Armored Division this had been a frustrating and disappointing battle ending in a stalemate, with the Germans ultimately claiming the city of Crailsheim. The frustration was due to the feeling that, with the help of additional infantry, the U.S. Seventh Army and the 10th Armored Division could almost certainly have captured and held Crailsheim.

Even though the city had been relinquished to the Germans and the 10th Armored losses were heavy, the 10th Armored had managed to capture 2000 German soldiers, kill more than 1000 others, shoot down 50 valuable German aircraft, and divert large numbers of German troops, which were needed and engaged elsewhere, to defend Crailsheim.
(162 Days, Dwayne Engle)

About the Medics
9 April - 10 April

Nichols gives high praise to the medics at Crailsheim. It was not my Dad's company that he mentions in his book, Impact, But it reminds us of the tireless work of all the medics. Here's some of what he had to say:

The supporting medical company for the attack had been cut off and medical aid was badly needed, so Section A, Company A, of the 80th Med. Bn. received orders to leave for Crailsheim at once.... Sniper and small arms fire harassed the column continuously, finally forcing it off the road onto an overland route. Air activity was also heavy and the column was forced to dig in several times. But despite these difficulties [they] reached Crailsheim safely at 0500, April 9.

[They] selected the local theater as the treatment station and were greeted with broad smiles [by the Tigers since] their own medics [were] on the scene.

The post office was used for billeting the wounded; those needing surgery were put in the lobby and later transferred to the basement of the theater. Nichols reports that great quantities of whole blood and plasma were flown in along with other medical supplies by C-47s landing under constant enemy mortar fire.

Surgery was continuous from 0530, April 9, until the last case came off the table at 1500, April 10. With each passing hour the town became hotter and hotter, ... but true to medical training, the patient came first and their safety last.

On the morning of April 10, a convoy of ambulances was formed to evacuate the casualties to a zone of safety, and medium tanks were offered as an escort but Capt. Curbo decided to run the gauntlet of enemy fire without them. The order to evacuate came at 1600 April 10... [the medics were] happy in the knowledge that every last case had been treated.

CC A led the column with CC B protecting the rear. Nichols names the 26 medics and says that

[t]o the ever adventurous medics, Crailsheim was a little Bastogne.

This was arguably one of the most frustrating of the Tigers' battle operations since entering combat the previous October. It had a hope of another big victory but ended in a deadlock. By April 12 Crailsheim was, by default, in German hands again.

And yet, Nichols reports, the 10th captued 2000 prisoners, disrupted enemy rear communications, killed more than 1,000 enemies, diverted large enemy forces from main efforts elsewhere and shot down 50 of the Luftwaffe's fe remaining fighter planes. Many considered it successful for those reasons and a breakthrough was made that would, in short order, lead the Tenth Armored to the Alps and on to Austria.