Pillbox Busters: Dillingen, Germany (Part 1).

I recently came across a fantastic World War II period article titled, “Yank ‘Pillbox Busters’ Blast Big Holes in Siegfried Line.” It was written by Pierre J. Huss, dated December 14, 1944, shortly after the Battle of Dillingen, Germany.  Huss was a reporter traveling with the Third Army.

The article is rather lengthy, so I will be bringing you bits and pieces over the next several weeks.  Please enjoy the first installment.

“Amid the tangle of Hitler’s little and big forts spiking the east banks of the Saar, known as the Siegfried Line, a tough new brand of American ‘pillbox busters’ has graduated into the expert task of killing more Germans than the Wehrmacht can afford to lose.

“Turning the tables on Hitler’s prewar claims that the Siegfried Line was built to ‘bleed white’ any assaulting armies by inflicting heavy casualties as they moved up step by step, these stony-eyed young Yanks are soaking the Saarlautern-Dillingen defense area with German blood.

“They’ve got the ticklish job of cracking pillboxes down to a warlike art achieved by split second timing, and this, by far, beats anything the specially trained Nazi troops demonstrated in 1940 after months of exacting practice for assaults on the Maginot Line.”

… to be continued.

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