The Far Shore

(Source)

"Herbert, this barge is sinking, the water has risen from my ankles to my knees in just a few minutes." Grenadier Herbert Preuß was understandably nervous. The company, along with a large number of men from the battalion staff, had boarded two ramshackle-looking Rhine barges being guided by a tug whose engines kept misfiring before catching again.

Grenadier Ernst Sachse, another 17 year old from the same small village in Lower Saxony as Preuß, had been too terrified to say anything. He had never traveled on a vessel of any sort in his whole life. He had simply assumed that if you traveled over water, you would get wet. That his friend Preuß had used the word "sinking" magnified his terror.

The hiss of shells passing overhead, the occasional explosions nearby, it seemed that the Amis had seen the barges attempting to cross the river and were now trying to stop them. Sachse had no trouble fighting on land, he'd been in the Army since his 16th birthday and had seen action in Italy and in the Ardennes, but being here, on this barge, made him feel helpless.

Unteroffizier Jochen Klassen came to where the two boys were standing, "Getting a little wet back here I see. Not to worry my lads, we're almost at the other side. Feldwebel Haasen wants us to be ready to get off this barge in a hurry when we hit the other side. The Ami cannon are starting to find the range."

As he said that, a near miss rocked the barge and made a number of the soldiers cry out in fear.

"Easy you old women! Papa Sauer won't let his children die in the river! He'll wait until we have our feet on the ground once more, then and only then will he let you die for the Fatherland!" Laughing maniacally, Klassen moved on, the man seemed drunk, but in reality he, like many of the sergeants and officers, hadn't slept properly in days. They were all exhausted beyond belief or care.

Suddenly the tug engines gave a great roar, shoving the barges against the river bank.

"Alle Männer gehen jetzt von Bord! Bewegung! Mach schnell!¹

There was a hurried scramble to get off the barges. The sergeants made sure their units stayed together and that no one got lost in the confusion. Everything was going well until the  American artillery finally found the range.

Fortunately the men were all ashore when the first shell hit the stern of the second barge. The sturdy old vessel had been in use on this section of the river for many years, but no more would she sail the mighty Rhine. The shell tore the stern off the barge and she immediately began to settle. Soon the barge was awash to nearly amidships. The drag from the wrecked barge and the river current was pulling the lead barge back into the river along with the tug itself.

Alois Schulze looked around the pilot house of the laboring tug, "Rolf, all ashore who are going ashore!"

His compatriot was already halfway out the door, "Devil catches the hindmost Alois, move your arse!"

Schulze jammed the throttle full ahead, then muttered, "Bury the old girl's nose in the mud, might buy me a minute or two..." Then he too was out the door and scrambling over the side. His brief return to the waters of the Rhine ended when his buddies pulled him ashore.

"I guess I'm back in the infantry..." he sighed as he watched the barge train take another hit from the American artillery. Now aflame, the burning barges were sucked into the current, pulling at the old tug whose engines finally gave up the ghost with a cough and a loud belching of smoke from the stack.

"Was jetzt?²" Schulze asked.

U.S. Army Photo

"Jesus Sarge, a man could get seasick in this job!" Pvt. Fred Strickland had a death grip on the side of the deuce and a half as the pontoon bridge they were crossing dipped then came back up again.

"What's the problem Strickland, never been on a pontoon bridge before?" Sgt. Enrique Cruz asked, grinning from ear to ear, though truth be told, he didn't much like the sensation either.

"Nope. First time Sarge. Coming over on a ship was bad enough but..."

Everyone ducked as another German shell hit the river and sent water in the air and then over the men crossing the bridge.

"Damn, that was close!" Cpl. John Chapman yelled as he was soaked once again by Rhine River water. "This is why I didn't join the damned Navy!"

At that point Pvt. Leon Higgins vomited all over the floor of the truck.

"Jesus Leon, what the Hell did you eat for breakfast!" One of his squad mates yelled in disgust.

"Didn't know you could get seasick on a truck!" Another man quipped.

Eventually the truck was back on solid ground. Sgt. Cruz hoped the truck driver knew where they were going, because he didn't have a clue. Not even his lieutenant knew, the company commander had told them all to mount up and told the drivers to follow the guy in front of them. The Charlie Company commander, Cpt. Tony Palminteri, led the convoy in his jeep.

After a few more minutes of travel, the trucks all rolled to a stop. Sgt. Cruz stood up to see what was going on, the trucks ahead of theirs were unloading, when he saw 1st Squad dismounting from their truck, he yelled out, "End of the line boys, let's go kill some Germans."

"Herr Major, it seems we have survived another glorious retreat of the mighty German Wehrmacht!" Leutnant Manfred Sauer was happy to see his battalion commander, Major Jürgen von Lüttwitz. "How many men did we save?"

"My staff is still taking the roll, but it appears 250 of us made it across last night. Did you know that our armored component made it over the Hohenzollernbrücke before it collapsed?" von Lüttwitz asked.

"The StuG and the Panthers?" Sauer asked in amazement. "How did the local commander let them slip out of his grasp?"

"He was busy, I'll wager. We've been ordered to Poll. I don't know why, but I'm sure the Army will make that clear in the next day or so. Our division is somewhere along the river south of Köln, fortunately on the eastern bank. I'm not sure how mobile they still are, we can move as fast as we can march. Just like our grandfathers." von Lüttwitz wasn't smiling when he said that, it seemed that the German Army was regressing to an earlier era.

"Hopefully the armored boys have enough fuel to be combat worthy." Sauer groused.

"Indeed. I think the Americans will be across the river in force any day now. If they aren't already."

"But?" Sauer asked.

"We fight on. For the moment." von Lüttwitz answered with a sigh.

"For the moment." Sauer agreed.

¹ Everyone ashore! Move! Make it quick!

² What now?

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