Word: geilenkirchen
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Dates: during 1944-1944
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...Normandy, General Bradley tightened the pressure-on two relatively small areas, probing for a weak spot. On a 15-mile sector-from behind Geilenkirchen to the Aachen-Dürenhills-the German sky throbbed to the thunder of more than 4,000 aircraft, the German earth shook under the bolts of 10,000 tons of bombs, the blows of 20 tons of shells a minute. How any German could stand up to battle after the opening blow was beyond the belief of those who watched...
...north other cracks appeared. "Texas Bill" Simpson's Ninth, wed in battle to units of Lieut. General Sir Miles Christopher Dempsey's British Second Army, slugged into heavily fortified Geilenkirchen, cut through the first deep defenses of the Siegfried Line. Geilenkirchen was a classic of teamwork; Germans were trapped between U.S. and British units. Within a few hours American G.I.s riding British tanks had pushed on into the Würm valley for three miles. The crust had softened. There were signs of limited German withdrawals...
...clear that the Germans feared the First Army's strength most of all the forces they faced in the west. They warned themselves of U.S. concentrations "for a grand-scale assault" aimed at the Cologne plain east of Geilenkirchen (twelve miles north of Aachen). To dispose his forces to meet it, the enemy shifted his dwindling reserves under the protection of swarms of mobile antiaircraft guns. Still Allied airmen in complete command of the air took a heavy toll of men & material...
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