ON TO VICTORY
| Division vehicles speed over German autobahns. Fine roadways
were used by enemy jet planes. |
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On April 24 Division elements left
the Kaiserslautern area, traveling 150 miles to an assembly area east of Heilbronn,
preparatory to re-entering the swift-moving Seventh Army line. Before the Division could
collect its many units in the assembly area, the Army line had moved more than miles
beyond. When the 12th Armored Division seized a bridge over the Danube, the whole
structure of German resistance crumbled.
| After being attached to the 21st Corps, the 36th
caught up with and relieved the 63rd Division at Landsberg, some 300 miles from
Kaiserslautern. Following and mopping up behind the fast-moving 12th Armored, a combat
technique both novel and pleasant to the 36th, the Texans initiated an attack to the south
from Landsberg. Wertheim was cleared
by the 2nd Battalion, 141st Infantry, which continued to move on into Penzberg. This was
rampaging warfare. Resistence stiffened only sporadically, but for units who sped forward
there was ever imminent the threat of ambush by fanatical storm troopers.
BAVARIAN ALPS
REACHED
Moving eastward, the 141st Infantry captured Bad
ToIz, engaging German stragglers fleeing into the Alpine retreat, while the 142nd swept
the woods to the east and west of Murnau in the direction of Garmisch-Partenkirchen, site
of the 1936 Winter Olympic games. At this time the 143rd assumed the police and
patrol of the Murnau-Issingen area.
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| When the 36th moved from Kaiserlautern to rejoin Seventh Army,
it took three jumps and five days to catch the rapidly advancing Army line. Six days
later, in Austria, final victory came. Click on map
to view larger image. |
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Attacking south from Bad ToIz, the
141st mounted the high Bavarian slopes to capture Tegernsee, Hohenburg, Lendgries and
Wolligan. Huge snowdrifts in the mountain passes slowed the movement, but on the morning
of the 5th the 141st cleared the last obstacle and entered the Inn River Valley.
Meanwhile, in what was to be the final action of
the war, the 142nd Infantry on May 4 was sent 50 miles around the heights, through
Raubling to relieve elements of the 12th Armored Division in the Inn River Valley at
Kufstein. The Division had now entered Austria. One day later the engagement at Itter
Castle provided a melodramatic finish. At 1830 of May 5 troops were ordered to halt in
place and await further instructions. Down the line passed the good word, "HEY, JOE,
THE WAR'S OVER." Joe rubbed his eyes, even cried....
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