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From D-Day to V-Day

November 1944

November 30, 1944 - D-Day + 177

Units from the British VIII and XII Corps under the 21st Army Group reduced the enemy bridgehead on the western bank of the Meuse River to a small pocket near Blerick.

The 102nd Infantry Division’s 405th Infantry Regiment under the Ninth Army’s XIII Corps from the 12th Army Group continued to do battle in the area around the main road between Lindern and Linnich, while the division’s 406th Infantry Regiment under Col Bernard F. Hurless advanced to the edge of Linnich. The division’s 407th Infantry Regiment under Col James C. Reed pushed the enemy out of Welz, located a little over a mile in front of the Rur River. The 84th Infantry Division’s 335th Infantry Regiment crushed the enemy’s defense in Beeck, but for now the Germans still held out in the hills to the northeast.

The 104th Infantry Division from the US First Army’s VII Corps finished mopping up Lammersdorf and occupied the northern section of Inden. The 4th Infantry Division’s 8th Infantry Regiment continued with their efforts to finally break through the Huertgen Forest, even at the price of heavy losses. Its sister regiment, the 12th Infantry Regiment, advanced about half a mile forward and reached the edge of the forest west of Gey, but was too weak to launch an attack on the village. With a tank brigade from the 5th Armored Division as reinforcement, the 4th Infantry Division’s 22nd Infantry Regiment mopped up Grosshau and forest between Grosshau and Gey. It then rotated to the northeast. Part of the regiment advanced to the edge of the forest within sight of Gey, but the remaining units could not keep up to even out the line.

Tank units from the XX Corps’ 10th Armored Division under the US Third Army launched an attack towards the Saar River on the Corps’ northern flank. Combat Command B reached the river opposite Merzig, but the Germans managed to destroy the bridge over the river in time. The 90th Infantry Division’s 359th Infantry Regiment occupied Fremesdorf, located on the western bank of the Saar River, without a fight. The 357th Infantry Regiment’s 1st Battalion crossed the Nied River near Niedaltdorf in assault boats and advanced on Bueren, which the enemy fiercely defended. After consolidating the line of advance, the 95th Infantry Division continued to attack in the direction of the Saar River and occupied the dominating hills in front of Saarlautern.

Col Fred E. Gaillard’s 377th Infantry Regiment from the 95th Infantry Division eliminated the rest of the enemy in St Barbara and then continued on to Felsberg while its sister regiment, the 378th Infantry Regiment under Col Samuel L. Metcalfe, conquered the hills south of Felsberg. To expand and secure the right flank of the 95th Infantry Division, Task Force Bell under Col Robert P. Bell was created out of the 5th Infantry Division’s 10th Infantry Regiment, the 5th Reconnaissance Squadron and support units. The XII Corps’ combat formations remained in their current positions; only the 4th Armored Division conquered the heights near Mackwiller which would be used to launch an attack on Sarre-Union.

In the eastern sector of the Seventh Army’s VI Corps under the 6th Army Group, tanks from the French 2nd Armored Division and from the 14th Armored Division’s Combat Command A continued to attack southwards. Combat Command B mopped up St Pierre in the course of the day. The 103rd Infantry Division under Major General Charles C. Haffner, which was gathered around Epfig in the zone south of St Pierre, followed Combat Command A headed towards Sélestat to the south. The 36th Infantry Division took up positions to launch an attack on Chatenois, located west of Sélestat.

In the course of November 30, 1944, Czechoslovak pilots serving in the No. 310 and 313 Squadrons RAF took part in escorting sixty British Avro Lancaster bombers that had been ordered to attack and destroy the coking plant in Bottrop. On the same day, their fellow airmen from the No. 312 RAF took part in a different Ramrod operation in which they were to guard a group of 60 Lancasters flying over the gas refinery in Osterfeld, Germany, against a possible enemy attack.

Several deaths were reported at Dunkirk that day as well. In the rear, military police Sgt Major Karel Pecka (b. 1905), a native of Římov, South Moravia, was killed in a motorcycle accident. In the eastern sector of the front, a member of the Combat Support Company, Cavalry Lieutenant Zdeněk Pužej, failed to return to his unit from a nighttime patrol. A search team did not find him, and it was later discovered that he was attacked by the enemy in the Bray Dunes Plage area. He was seriously injured in the skirmish and died in captivity in a German hospital in Rosendael the following day. Zdeněk was born in Prague in 1914.