Now only 60 miles from the Czechoslovakian border, the 11th changed direction, shooting its swift-moving spearheads to the southeast. The enemy's retreat turned into a rout -- prisoners overtaken by the flying advance columns were dazed by the Thunderbolt's speed. As the 11th flashed through Bavaria, supporting infantry often was unable to keep up and several times Corps was forced to halt the division to allow doughs to catch up. Pessimistic front line men sensed the kill, talked guardedly and hopefully of the end.
The two combat commands, CC A and CC B, drove on in parallel columns. Themar, Scheusingen and Hildburghausen fell in rapid succession to CC A, while CC B knocked out Zeilfeld. Resistance was expected in Coburg where the two columns were to converge but the garrison at Coburg Castle, on the outskirts of the city, surrendered after its officers deserted. When the columns entered the city April 10 they found the civilians removing the roadblocks and white flags flying from the windows.
Striking swiftly on the 12th, CC A swung to the northeast to take Kronach, and the next day entered Kulmbach where light small arms fire was encountered. While part of the command was clearing out the town, other elements sped on, to occupy Stadt Steinach and Unter Steinach. In this drive .two 240mm railway guns were captured intact as well as an experimental electronics laboratory specializing in ultra-high frequency radio which had been moved from Berlin only a few days before.
Thunderbolt tankers also ran up against a group of teenage youngsters, some of whom were only 13 years old. The youths had been given uniforms a few days previous to the Americans' approach and had been ordered to leave the town. Homesick, hungry and tired, they were picked up while carrying white flags by an MP detachment under Maj. Ernest L. Booch, Quincy, Ill., and returned to their homes.
Meanwhile, CC B swung to the south, captured Mainleus. Then, a flying column of the 41st Cav. Recon Sqdn. Raced to Bayreuth, 20 miles away. Reaching the outskirts of the historic Bavarian city, famed for its Wagnerian music festivals, negotiations began for its surrender, April 14.
The defenders were given three hours to give up. Shortly before the time expired, the town was reported clear except for some fanatics. To meet possible resistance, tanks and infantry rushed into the city which fell with little trouble. Later in the day, elements of the 71st Inf. Div. moved in, and the 11th pulled out to an assembly area north of the city.
Two tank men, Pfc Al Houska, Portland, Ore., and Pfc Chester Gajda. Detroit, Mich., captured five Germans on a hilltop overlooking Bayreuth. The two tankers headed for a plowed corner of a field to dig foxholes in the soft ground. Just inside the fence, in high grass, they found the Germans, armed with bazookas. The Nazis, overawed by the armored vehicles in the vicinity, threw down their arms and surrendered.
Jumping off again April 19, the 11th captured the Wehrmacht training center of Grafenwohr. The town was the combined Fort Knox and Fort Sill of the Germany Army, the birthplace of German panzer tactics. American tankers tested the terrain, found it like Louisiana.
The largest chemical warfare supply dump in Germany also was captured, with an estimated 3,000,000 rounds of chemical artillery shells and thousands of gas mines.
The Thunderbolt drove on. Leading elements liberated 1722 Allied prisoners at Weiden April 22. Nabburg, Schwarzenfeld and Cham fell without resistance. South of Cham an airfield was captured with 50 enemy planes. After it was seized, three more aircraft, their pilots unaware that it was in American hands, landed and were seized.
Men of the 11th had a first-hand glimpse of SS atrocities in their drive to the Danube. Hundreds of bodies of political prisoners lay along the route of march, which led from the Flossenburg concentration camp. The SS had marched the prisoners out of the camp and killed those who could not keep up. On the way, tankmen liberated thousands of undernourished Allied prisoners of war.
Reaching the Regen River April 24, the rapid advance was halted by a blown bridge at the village of Regen. Dismounted infantry from CC B crossed the stream and seized the town after a short but sharp struggle. That night the 56th Engineers threw a treadway bridge across the river and the column resumed its advance next morning.
Smashing ahead, CC A swept through Grafenau, overtaking the Japanese legation of 37 men, women and children fleeing to Vienna by rail. Freyung fell to CC A on the morning of April 26 while CC B swung south of the city, and early that night the advance elements of CC A crossed the Austrian border.
As the main bodies of the division moved up and consolidated their positions in the next four days, heavy resistance developed at the border town of Wegscheid. Small arms, mortar, anti-tank and artillery fire burst from the town itself and surrounding woods. Div Arty moved up, amid a devastating barrage. Infantry closed in from the east and north, gained the summit of a series of hills overlooking the town, and on the night of April 30, stormed into the town and cleared it.
The end of April found the fast-stepping 11th Armored the easternmost division in the American Army, 250 miles from Fulda and with a record bag of prisoners. In the swift onslaught the Thunderbolt had liberated more than 3000 Allied PWs and hundreds of German political prisoners. As the end of the war neared, the 11th was poised for the last strike into Austria.
THE LAST BORDER
Plunging across the Austrian border May 1, CC A and CC B followed parallel routes toward the Danube River. Tearing through fanatical SS resistance and several defended road blocks. CC A grabbed Rohrbach and Neufelden, forded the Muhl River at Neufelden and struck out for the southeast. CC B also changed direction, sped to Zwettl, cutting the main north-south highway leading to Linz, and continued east while CC A went on to Linz.
After two days of bitter fighting along the approaches to the key Austrian city, the 11th entered Linz May 5 through Urfahr, a neighboring city across the Danube River. Leading citizens of the two cities attempted to negotiate a conditional surrender by which German soldiers could be allowed to withdraw and fight the Red Army approaching from the east. Brig. Gen. Holbrook rejected the offer, ordered his troops to enter Urfahr and Linz.
Despite rejection of the German's terms, the 11th found Linz undamaged and not a shot was fired in defense. The tankers, accustomed to the stony silence of German civilians, were amazed by the Austrian welcome. Women and children showered their vehicles with flowers. Housewives brought out pitchers of cider and bottles of wine.
The liberation of tattered, starved-looking laborers, mainly Russians, Poles and Yugoslavs, resulted in dancing in the streets.
Relieved by the 65th Inf. Div., the 11th pushed out of Linz. Advancing down the Danube, a reconnaissance patrol uncovered two notorious concentration camps at Mauthausen and Gusen. Here were 16,000 political prisoners, representing every country in Europe, all reduced to living skeletons and ridden with disease. The bodies of more than 500 were stacked in an area between two barracks. The few long-term prisoners still alive said that at least 45,000 bodies had been burned in the huge crematorium in four years. Other thousands were killed in the gas chambers, injected with poison or beaten to death.
The 11th rushed all available medical facilities to Mauthausen to prevent further loss of life while cavalry patrols probed eastward, seeking contact with the Red Army advancing westward from Vienna. At 1550, May 8, Troop A, 41st, commanded by Lt. Kedar B. Collins, Albany, Ca., met a patrol of the Soviet Seventh Guards Div., first unit of Third Army to link up with the Red Army.
Mauthausen survivors cheer the soldiers of the Eleventh Armored Division of the U.S. Third Army one day after their actual liberation; photo courtesy of USHMM
The meeting took place in the midst of battle. The Soviet patrol of seven tanks was following the trail of its planes strafing and bombing a German column of SS Panzer troops. In the face of the Soviet advance, the American patrol, consisting of an armored car and three peeps, was almost taken under fire.
Sgt. John L. Brady, riding in the lead peep, leaped up and shouted: "We are Americans!" Lt. Gene Ellenson, Coral Cables, Fla., and Lt. Richard L. Lucas, Mt. Carmel, Ill., shot up flares to identify their nationality. The Red Army troops replied with their flares and jumped out to join the Americans. First Yank to meet the Soviet patrol was T/4 Frank H. Johnson, Reno, Nev., who was greeted by Lt. Fyodor A. Kiseyev.
T/Sgt, Clarence L. Barts, Chicago, at the time of the meeting, was mistaken for a German. The Red Army soldiers demanded his pistol. When they learned he was an American, they hugged and kissed him.
Others who took part in the historic junction of the victorious armies were Cpl. Theodore Barton, Brisbane, Australia, a released PW who acted as interpreter; Pfc Robert P. Vanderhagen, E. Detroit, Mich.; T/Sgt. Joseph P. McTighe, Louisville, Ky.; Cpl. Will Richmond, Trenton, N.J.; Pfc Michael Tancrati, Springfield, Mass.; Sgt. Marvin H. Estes, Montrose, Colo.; T/5 Andrew Florey, Medford, Ore.
Later that day, commanders of three German military units offered to surrender unconditionally to the division. These were the 2nd SS Panzer Corps, with 50,000 troops; the 8th German Army, strength 100,000; the Russian Forces of Liberation, a Nazi-sponsored army, 100,000 strong. All were told to remain in place.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED
At 0001 May 9, the war officially ended. The mission of the Allied Armies -- unconditional surrender of Germany -- was accomplished. The 11th Armd. Div., after four months and 10 days of combat, ended the European war in the forefront of the American eastern drive.
Following the surrender, men of the Thunderbolt Division could take stock of their achievements. They had captured 76,229 prisoners, nearly twice as many as were taken by the entire American Army in World War I. The figure did not include 10,000 prisoners turned over to supporting infantry divisions for evacuation or 34,125 German troops who violated surrender terms by fleeing from the Red Army. These troops were rounded up and turned over to the Soviet forces.
The 11th had swept across Germany in one of the swiftest advances in military history, captured hundreds of cities and towns, destroyed a good part of the German forces and liberated thousands of Allied prisoners and slave laborers.
To accomplish its mission, the 11th functioned as a smooth-working, hard-striking team. Besides the armored infantry and tank battalions, the 183rd FA Gp. and attached units played an important role. Troops such as the 575th AA Bn., 705th, 602nd and 811th TD Bns., 991st Engr. Trdwy Br. Co., and 996th Engr. Trdwy Br. Co. helped in beating the Germans into submission. In many of the battles the 11th had the support of the XIX TAC.
Men of the 81st Medic Bn. worked tirelessly, treating and evacuating casualties swiftly and efficiently. Vehicles and weapons were kept in fighting trim under all conditions of weather and terrain by the 133rd Ord. Bn. Truck drivers of the 381st QM Trk Co., and 659th QM Truck Co., not only delivered over ever-lengthening lines but on one occasion dismounted and fought with the infantry. Wire men, radio operators and messengers came in for their share of praise also.
It was a team that adapted itself smoothly to ever-changing conditions under the control of the division staff, a team that met and defeated the best the enemy could throw against it. The 11th Armored accomplished every mission, made a combat record in which every Thunderbolt soldier could take genuine pride.
Additional Sources:
www.11tharmoreddivision.com
