By the first of March, 1945, three great fissures had been blasted in Hiller’s Fortress Europe. Fleets of the United States and Great Britain steadily, relentlessly poured through them the sea-borne armies of the United Nations.
The Battle of the Atlantic was won. The Battle of Europe was being won.
It seemed, even in the Navy Department in Washington, and the Admiralty in London, that the fleets had accomplished their mission in the war against Hitler. They had beaten his submarines; they had battered down the sea walls of his continent and put their armies ashore, and now there remained only the humdrum labor of maintaining unending delivery of more troops, more munitions, to the portals of battle.
There were still submarines to be hunted m the Atlantic, and all convoys had to be guarded against the U-boats, which snapped like vicious curs at the fringes of the great herds of ships, occasionally dragging down a solitary straggler. But, so far as the war in Europe was a concern to the American bluejacket, he chanted happily the old pre-invasion war cry “It won’t be long now.’’
But—a big “but”—there was one more river to cross, one more battle to win. From the Army of the United States, preparing for the final overwhelming assault on that Nazi Fatherland, came an appeal to the U. S. Navy.
The mighty Rhine, sacred to the Germans since Caesar’s day, stood in the Army’s way.
“Fest sleht und treu die Wachl am Rhein." Would the Navy bear a hand in blasting it loose? Would it?
The call came in October, 1944. The Rhine was still a long way ahead of the Army but General Eisenhower knew where he was going, and pretty close to when he would get there. The Reich itself was still intact, save for the loss of Aachen to the Americans and a few nibbles which the Soviet forces had chewed into East Prussia.
The Commander of U. S. Naval Forces in France (COMNAVFORFRANCE) who led the amphibious assault on Normandy, was given general command of the Navy’s strangest assignment.
The craft chosen for the Navy’s use in the heart of Europe were LCVP’s and some LCM’s. The Army was familiar with both. They were “the damn little water bugs” that had landed the Army wherever it went to fight in Africa or Europe.
From the official summary it is learned that:
Numerous tests of equipment under varying climatic conditions were made, while technical problems arising from the boats’ operation in fresh, rather than salt, water, had to be solved. It was necessary, too, to test the capacity of the equipment to perform the tasks required.
The Rhine units were organized and assembled in England; seasoned personnel, veterans of many a landing on hostile shores, were chosen for the Navy’s fresh-water expeditionary force.
Three LCVP units were assembled by November 15, and moved from England to training sites on the Meuse and Moselle Rivers in Belgium and France. Two others were organized, one to be kept at Le Havre as a replacement and spare-parts unit, and one in reserve in England. The basic organization of each unit was 13 officers, 205 enlisted men and 24 LCVP’s.
The first thing the small boatmen had to learn was to look and act like soldiers. A press relations officer of CONNAVEU, assigned to the first unit, writes:
The sailors worked and lived exactly like soldiers. To camouflage themselves as much as possible, officers and men wore Army field uniforms and helmets, covering or discarding all naval insignia. I am sure it was the hardest part of the training for them to take. The picture of disconsolation is a young Navy petty officer who has worked hard for years to earn his rating badge and then has no opportunity to show it off.
The boats were more difficult to disguise but even they took on a GI appearance. Blue hulls, which proudly wore the USN, gave way to olive drab under Army spray-guns. They were brought to their training sites as unobtrusively as possible, moving mostly at night. Where possible they came by water, through the North Sea and down through the waterways of Belgium and France. Those with the Third Army came all the way by land from Le Havre, a journey of 300 miles. They arrived festooned with tree-tops, telephone wires, and bits of buildings from the French villages through which they had passed like not-too-silent ghosts in the night.
Training came easy to these veterans, most of whom had yet to reach voting age. The difficulties were with craft designed for salt water now placed in river operations; mud and silt and ice brought complications, and tricky river currents added more.
“Mainly they fought mud,” the press officer added, “mud which bogged down their cranes and launching equipment; mud which mired their trucks and oozed about their ankles ....
“Then came the German break-through. The men prepared to destroy their boats if necessary. The unit with the First Army was moved six times. Men lived wherever they could find a spot to lie down .... By the time the Germans were repulsed and our lines formed for the great Spring push, this inland Navy was as much a part of the Army as its infantry or its tanks.”
But let the skipper of Unit No. 1 tell his own story:
We were attached to the 1120th group of the XII Corps, 1st Army, October 18, 1944. The boats were brought up to this area (Andenne, Belgium) on 40-foot flatbed trailers and dumped on the little secondary road completely covered with camouflage, to be painted olive drab for security reasons.
Within a week six of the boats were taken down to Cheratte, Belgium, along with 298th Battalion, Combat Engineers, to find a successful method, or methods, of launching the craft in the river similar to the Rhine. One week later a second training site was opened at Li6gc, Belgium, with the 297th Battalion, Combat Engineers.
The Cheratte base was moved back to Andenne after the experiments for launching had been worked out and three successful methods had been decided upon. The training site at Andenne was used as a combined training site, the boats being used to assist the engineers in the construction of various bridges across the Meuse River.
This training program went on for six weeks and was stopped only because of the November offensive. However this offensive did not go forward, and all but six boat crews of the unit were then moved up to Aschen, Germany, until the Ardennes break-through. General Collins, of the XII Corps, released our unit and it was taken back 100 miles, out of the danger area, The personnel and craft had to be moved hurriedly and were taken to Waremme, Belgium. Six boat crews at Andenne were in a very dangerous position, with the Germans only 11 miles away.
However, the German tide was again reversed, and with the advancing Army went the Navy. On March 8 they reached the Rhine, near Remagen.
Remagen, it will be remembered, was where the First Army came up so suddenly the Germans did not have a chance to blow up the bridge, and so for 10 days the Americans had the use of the span—such use as could be made under continuous bombardment.
The official summary related:
While these first U. S. naval units were being placed in the water, Army Engineers erected a heavy 1,200-foot pontoon bridge about 100 yards above the boat-launching point. Two thirds of the river had already been spanned, but the remaining third proved difficult because of the 6-knot current on the east bank of the river.
So the first LCVP in the water took some pontoons in tow and chugged over to the enemy side of the river to enable the Engineers to complete their bridge. But the current pushed the pontoon-bridge into an arc, and the anchorages became weakened. Iwo of the LCVP’s put their blunt noses against the bulge of the bridge and shoved upstream; when the bridge had been straightened out, the LCVP’s just stayed there, pushing 6-knots worth south to offset the liver’s 6-knot thrust north.
It was funny business to be in, but not boringly so. The Germans did their best with bomb and shell to get the Navy out of there. After two days the Engineers had their bridge buttoned down tight, and the LCVP’s went about their calculated business of hauling troops and guns and gasoline across the river.
The punishment those youngsters took during those first days at Remagen Bridge belongs in the history book.
But the skipper of Unit No. 1 merely recalls that:
Besides the assistance given to the engineers in the construction of their bridges, the craft were used to evacuate casualties and to carry personnel across. We took the personnel of the 1st, 2d, and 69th divisions across the river.
It is interesting to note that some of the boat crews of tin's unit had taken members of the 1st Division in at Normandy!
One of the Navy lieutenants who was in such danger of capture at Andenne has some interesting side lights on the Navy’s chore at the Rhine. He recalls:
At the upstream end of the bridgehead our unit ran a patrol during the day and also at night. On die night patrol we had one boat whose sole purpose was to drop depth charges at intervals of about two minutes, just to combat swimmers who were attempting to destroy the bridges which had been built by the 1st Army. We were twice successful in bringing swimmers—so-called human torpedoes—to the surface, and forcing them ashore to the Army custody.
When the Ludendorff Bridge finally collapsed, after serving its purpose for five or six days, the boats which were downstream of this bridge were used to collect debris and divert it away from the other bridges under construction. This operation saved at least one of the bridges from being carried away or seriously damaged.
Again, one of the heavy pontoon bridges started to carry away in the swift current, because the anchors were not heavy or strong enough to hold the bridge. Three of our boats went out to the bridge. Putting their bow against the bridge and going at full speed, they were able to hold the bridge in place for 18 hours until heavier anchors were secured.
Naval Unit No. 2 was attached to General Patton’s Third Army, and as might be expected from no more introduction than that, the commanding officer has an interesting yarn to relate:
The eight officers and LCVP crews ordered to U. S. Naval Unit Two came from eight different LST’s. A staff with a yeoman, cooks, stewards’ mates, and miscellaneous rates, which we laughingly called a housekeeping unit, was also furnished. On November 10 we left the United Kingdom, embarked in an LSD.
On November 11 we reached Le Havre and set out under our own power for the port where we were to be embarked on heavy pontoon trailers and be taken to our ultimate destination, near the headquarters of the Third United States Army. But, upon arriving at Le Havre, an ammunition ship struck a mine and our small boats participated in the rescue work. After three days in Le Havre a U. S. Army liaison officer, representing the Third U. S. Army, arrived to direct us to our destination which was Toul, France.
On November 15, we reached Toul, France, and tried to get established on land as quickly as possible. We were ducks in a desert. We had come equipped with everything from pyramidal tents to special cots so that we could compete with the Army on land.
Our unit became attached to the 1134th Combat Engineers. We were shown a bombed-out cavalry school. I was impressed with the bombing but the Colonel in charge said, “Don’t laugh, this is your new home.” No windows, doors, water, or lights were available. The name of the place was the Adolph Hitler Caserne and one of the sailors immediately renamed it the “USS Blood and Guts.”
In less than a week we had a creditable mess organized and intensive training had been begun since the assault itself was scheduled in December. It was bitter cold and rained continuously. In fact, all weather records for the past 100 years were broken.
Day and night maneuvers ensued. The river on which we practiced was the Moselle, and as far as the Navy craft were concerned the river itself was no obstacle whatsoever. The coxswains easily proved themselves quite adept at managing the LCVP in a river. The Moselle at this time, as a result of the heavy rains, was in flood and with a very fast current.
By Thanksgiving Day the Moselle had reached proportions that were staggering. The river had risen to a point where the craft themselves were actually on a country road. Thanksgiving afternoon an alarm was sounded that the Navy craft had broken their moorings. An officer and a special detail had been placed on day and night duty in order to forestall any such events. The river fell rapidly and this officer and his enlisted men, in an endeavor to secure the craft, started them down the river, but they eventually got away.
Twenty of the 24 craft went over the falls, as did the officer in charge! He did this without a barrel. In fact, as he approached the falls, he jumped out of his boat but failed to make shore. He was saved by two Frenchmen. By midnight all but seven of the craft had been retrieved, with little damage done. The river had fallen so fast that seven LCVP’s were high and dry in a meadow. It was a strange sight to see cows and goats grazing under the bows of Navy assault boats.
Every type of experimental loading and unloading of LCVP’s was practiced. Every type gun that would fit an LCVT was put on and taken off. The LCVP was fitted as litter-bearing craft, fittings permitting the carrying of 14 casualties at one time. We even went so far as to put on a bulldozer weighing 9J tons, and, although the freeboard was negligible with this tremendous load, the LCVP showed that it could manage it in a stream. Command cars, jeeps, trailers of every shape and description were loaded on and off our craft in a series of interminable practice experiments. Later this stood us in good stead.
On December 10, we were ordered to Nancy, headquarters of the United States Third Army, for a briefing on the actual assault. Places were selected on the Rhine and the assault was to be on a two-corps front similar to Omaha Beach. Therefore, my executive officer and I divided the unit into two parts and we practiced alternate assaults with one half of U. S. Naval Unit Two serving as one complete self-sufficient unit.
On December 17, a fellow by the name of Von Rundstedt upset all our plans. The U. S. Third Army left Saar, evacuated Dillingen and turned practically northwest to hammer at Von Rundstedt’s flank in the famous bulge. Our practice sessions ceased. Thought was given to the safety of our boats and instead of practicing assaults we practiced demolition. Thermite grenades were obtained and in the event of a break-through it was decided to destroy the boats and attempt to make a get-away ourselves.
Early in January, fifteen LCM’s arrived to swell our unit. We then had about 250 enlisted men and 16 officers. This included a small Scabee detachment of six enlisted men and one officer whose job was to instruct the Army in the assembly of NL pontoons. The NL pontoons were to be used in carrying pile-driving equipment so that permanent bridges could be installed when, as and if the assault took place.
In early March General Patton’s forces broke through northwest of Koblenz and we were alerted. Someone decided that General Patton was not to cross the Rhine at this time so the alert was off. This was not particularly good for our morale. After five months with the Army we were ready for some naval activity. The men had done everything from load barbed wire on railroad trains to paint over 15,000 directional signs.
A couple of weeks later, at Third Army headquarters at Luxembourg, I was informed by brigadier General Conklin, head of the Engineers, that we were alerted. He told me that the Unit was to be loaded and leave the following afternoon through a blazing Germany which had not yet been mopped up. I was informed that the road through which we were to pass was still in German 1'ands but would be captured by the following morning.
On March 21 we were underway for Worrstadt, which was some 20 miles from Oppenheim, Germany, where the Third U. S. Army was all set for the assault. My Executive Officer and I reached the officers of XII Corps and were informed that a reconnaissance of the Rhine River had yet to be made. Lieutenant (j.g.) D. L. Spaulding, U. S. Naval Reserve, and I then played cops and robbers on the river front selecting embarkation and debarkation points. We were then briefed and introduced to the Commanding General of the Fifth United States Infantry Division.
This famous division was charged with the mission of establishing and securing a bridgehead. Imagine our consternation when we were told that the jump-off time was 2200 the same night. Our boats were still en route.
“Far Shore” was established at five minutes after 1:00 a.m. My Executive Officer slipped across the river and directed operations. As soon as the preponderance of the boats were launched and dawn was breaking we were heavily shelled by enemy artillery. The shelling was inaccurate and did no damage.
The launching of the boats was not a signal for intense activity. In fact my Executive Officer and bad to solicit business from the infantry Joes, who were still paddling across the river. By 0700 a full-scale business was underway, contacts had been made with traffic control officers and an endless stream of infantrymen and light combat division vehicles was crossing the river.
The turn-around was speedier than anticipated. Crews were reduced by one-half and a German Hotel requisitioned so the men could be housed. A six-hour on, six-hour off watch was instituted, but the officers stayed on continuously.
With the advent of full daylight we were subjected to more artillery fire, again very inaccurate. The vaunted German accuracy with the 88-mm. was not in evidence. We were strafed four times during the day and casualties were light. The Germans were merely indulging in nuisance raids, accomplishing nothing as far as slowing down of river traffic was concerned.
Three of the LCVP’s were employed in the building of bridges, laying of nets and booms, and one of them pushed what is known as a heavy pontoon ferry, bringing across 70 tank destroyers and tanks in less than 30 hours. The number of infantry crossed in 48 hours was in excess of 15,000 men. This does not take cognizance of the tremendous loads of prisoners, and wounded, which the craft were bringing from the far shore.
At 1700 that evening I was notified that the VIII Corps was to make an assault, using our other 12 LCVP’s. We were notified that the 15 LCM’s left at Toul, France, were en route, their destination unknown. This again changed the plans since we had anticipated making a crossing with XX Corps. A crossing with VIII Corps was not in our plan.
I set out with another officer by command car for Simmern, Germany, headquarters of the VIII Corps, Third United States Army. As we left German planes were overhead and we did a quick abandon ship. I tried to dig a fox hole in asphalt with my bare hands, was highly unsuccessful, but so was the strafing. We reached Simmern at 2230 the same night. The Corps Colonel advised us that the assault would not take place that night. We were grateful. After 72 hours on our feet we were completely out. The following morning we were briefed and told that the assault would be on a two infantry division front; one taking place at Boppard between two tremendous cliffs, headed up by the 87th Infantry Division; the next would be at St. Goar in the vicinity of the famed Lorelei (rock) with the 89th Division, again another change.
Six LCVP’s were to be used in each of these assaults and LCM’s if they arrived, and they did.
Our six LCVP’s were launched the morning of the 24th and immediately did a full-scale business which exceeded the fondest expectations. The value of the craft proved themselves in the first 48 hours. However, it was decided that it was too dangerous to bring the LCM’s down these mountain passes and the LCM’s stayed on the hillside helping nobody.
This experience did not help matters the following night, since the 89th Infantry made the assault at St. Goar and the only transport they had was ten DUKW’s, furnished by the Army.
By the afternoon of the 26th, when the St. Goar bridgehead was not very successful, the orders were given to bring the Navy craft to the water with our LCM’s. Before 2:00 a.m., we were going to town. We transported an entire infantry division and all their attendant vehicles in less than 48 hours. The results were spectacular.
The evening of March 27, scuttlebutt reached us that the XX Corps was to make an assault in the vicinity of Mainz, Germany. My Executive Officer and I were totally unfamiliar with the roads, but again reported to Colonel Keller of the VIII Corps who confirmed this fact: The craft to be used were to be taken from the Oppenheim area and supplemented with six LCM’s, so that XX Corps could be carried across.
Sniping and small-arms fire was terrific from the outset. Zero hour was 0100 the morning of the 26th. We reached Mainz, Germany, one hour before H-hour and were completely unsuccessful in finding the craft. Staying on the river banks was too dangerous and we were accomplishing nothing. We dug in with two MB’s and waited until dawn. At dawn the craft were found.
At 1420 artillery fire was quite heavy, but had not located the launching site. One coxswain volunteered to take his boat to the river, in order to draw enemy fire. He was quite successful! He then returned to the lagoon and took the first boat of infantrymen across. An island in the middle of the Rhine, heavily fortified, had not been neutralized. Small-arms fire was quite heavy. Although some 600 infantrymen reached the far shore, the bridgehead was not established. In three hours naval craft transported more than 3,500 men. The spectacular work of our “freshwater fleet was again in evidence.”
At roughly 0700 German artillery fire came down heavily while we were on the far shore. This error in not finding the launching site at once probably saved our lives. This time German artillery was accurate. They scored a direct hit on our bulldozer, demolished several of our trucks and a lieutenant was killed. Minor shrapnel wounds were incurred by others.
The work of this section of the unit continued unabated in the regular pattern—six hours on, six hours off, three days of no respite and then practically nothing to do. Bridge maintenance, assisting in the building of bridges, pushing of pontoon
ferries, laying nets, patrol, launching of depth charges to force suicide swimmers to the surface, was the familiar pattern of U. S. Naval Unit Two after all the assaults.
We all felt that a good job had been done.
So, evidently, did General Patton, who wrote this letter:
The Headquarters
Third United States Army
Office of the Commanding General
23 April 1945
Subject: Commendation.
To: Commanding Officer, U. S. Naval Unit Number Two
(1) Please accept for yourself and pass on to the officers and men of your command the sincere appreciation and admiration of all the elements of the Third U. S. Army for the superior work accomplished by your unit in Third Army assault crossings of the Rhine River.
(2) During the period from 19 March to 31 March, 1945, U. S. Naval Unit Number Two assisted in four assault crossings of the Rhine River by Third Army. The first crossing was made on 22 March, 1945, by the XII Corps at Oppenheim, where craft of Naval Unit Number Two in the first 72-hour period transported over 15,000 troops and over 1,200 vehicles. The second crossing by the VIII Corps at Boppard was made 24 March, 1945, and here during the first 24-hour period Naval Unit Number Two transported approximately 5,000 men and 200 vehicles. The third crossing was made at Oberwesel, on 26 March, 1945, with very nearly an entire division with its supporting vehicles was crossed in 48 hours. The fourth crossing was made by the X Corps at Mainz on 26 March, 1945, and here in the first three hours, Naval Unit Number Two transported 3,500 men to the far shore in spite of intensive artillery fire. Each and every officer and man of U. S. Naval Unit Number Two is hereby commended for the superior manner in which his task was performed.
Signed G. S. Patton, Jr.,
General, U. S. Army,
Commanding.
The third unit assisted the Ninth Army to cross the Rhine, very nearly simultaneously with the Third Army’s crossing. Unit No. 3 had the toughest going; it suffered the most casualties—13 out of the 15 total— but it helped smash the gateway of the Ruhr.
As reported by a lieutenant with the Third Unit:
WITH UNITED STATES NAVAL FORCES ON THE RHINE—(March 26, Delayed).— This is being written in a tiny village near Duisburg, Germany. The Ninth United States Army crossed the Rhine here yesterday morning, assisted by the American Navy.
I said that I was confident that this would be the last naval D-day before the collapse of Hitler’s armies. Even Army D-days, I believe, are numbered now. Not that I think there will be immediate surrender—I saw too much in Brittany last summer of the kind of fighting the German Army can do against hopeless odds—but I am confident that with the Ruhr in Allied hands and Silesia in those of Russia, the Nazi means for making war will soon be gone. For the first time I am willing to think of the end of the European war in terms of weeks rather than many months.
The crossing of Lieutenant General William H. Simpson’s forces here yesterday was the real power play among the Allied breachings of the Rhine. For this is the critical and most heavily fortified point of the river defenses. It is the gateway which leads up the broad valley of the Ruhr to the heart of the industrial reich. Our high command has known that it must eventually strike here and Hitler has known it too. Both sides have been girding their loins for many weeks.
The attack was co-ordinated with the British thrust down river to the north and with air-borne landings to the northeast. It was carried out by more soldiers, both infantry and armor, than have ever before been assembled behind a narrow front. They were supported by the heaviest concentration of artillery yet brought to bear on such a target.
General Simpson felt confident that his artillery could soften up the far bank efficiently for his assault troops to get ashore. At that point the critical stage of the crossing would come. These troops must be supplied with the reinforcements and weapons to fight their way quickly inland while the enemy was still off balance. Three fifths of the secret of success in modern war is the ability to “build up” powerfully and rapidly.
That is where the Navy was to come in. Our small boatmen in their husky landing craft were to rush tanks, guns, and ammunition across—and more soldiers to reinforce the flying wedge. They were to fill that all-important time gap before heavy ferries could be put into operation and temporary bridges erected.
There was a complete blackout of the assault area but a half moon in a cloudless sky was enough to light up the endless lines of men and vehicles making their way through every back road and lane to the points of rendezvous. It etched out the silhouettes of the boats as they rocked along at tree-top levels on their huge carriers.
Since we had hours to wait, some of the crews tried to sleep on the open decks of their boats. At least they rolled up in their blankets and closed their eyes. To my amazement, I saw one boy carefully wind a small alarm clock and place it on the deck beside him. It was set for 2:00 a.m.
If that alarm clock ever went off I am sure nobody heard it. For precisely at 2:00 a.m. every gun of that mighty array behind us began to fire. We knew that we were in front of the artillery but we didn’t know that the guns were going to fire directly through our cars—for so it seemed. Their blasts made the thick steel boat hulls shiver and dance like tuning forks and we had the feeling that our nerve endings were dancing with them.
German batteries held their fire until well after the barrage began, attempting to locate our guns by their muzzle flash. Then the Nazi shells started coming in, probing for the source of our salvos.
The German guns found few of ours and that terrific barrage had its calculated effect. At three o'clock the first assault troops started going over and found a shore line so softened that some battalions did not lose a single man. Half an hour later the Navy boats were in the water and a steady stream of tanks, mobile guns, and reinforcement troops were on their way into the bridgehead.
At daylight the real opposition on the beach area began. With the river in clear sight, the Germans hammered it with every gun and mortar at their command in a desperate effort to stop the traffic flowing across. But they couldn’t stop it and only a few of our boats were hit. Battlewise coxswains, who had learned how to avoid enemy fire by twisting and swinging their craft in ocean surf, were equally nimble here. Their skill—and the luck which skill always brings—carried them through.
Today there is no more doubt. The bridgehead is assured. Spearheads are 2 miles inland and enough reinforcements are across so that they can no longer hope to push us back. This greatest breaching of the Rhine has been accomplished.
Ten hours later the commander and his equally exhausted and grimy executive officer thought there was nothing on earth that could ever excite them again.
And then up came General Simpson with General Omar Bradley, and Field Marshal Sir Alan Brook, and Field Marshal Sir Bernard Montgomery, himself, with a man who looked enough like Prime Minister Churchill to be “Winny” himself. And so it was, with the stink of battle still in the air and the noise of it plain in one’s ears.
Mr. Churchill wanted to cross the river in a U. S. naval craft. And across he went, with his whole party; across the Rhine. It must have been a moment of triumph, an experience of great exaltation, to the Prime Minister.
“What did he say?” the coxswain was asked, after the party had debarked and left.
“Hell, sir,” he replied, “he didn’t say anything in particular. He just took that big black cigar out of his mouth and spit in the Rhine.”
It is only reasonable to believe that a planned campaign will result better than one in which decisions are reached under the spur of events. We know, moreover, what military chiefs and writers thought of it, and will say with Napoleon "Nothing succeeds in war except in consequence of a well-arranged plant."—DARRIEUS, War on the Sea.
*From Battle Report: The Battle of the Atlantic. Copyright 1945 by Walter Karig, and reprinted by permission of Farrar and Rinehart, Inc., publisher.