Bradley's Race

The western front last week was like a race in which one horse surges ahead, then another, then another. But it was a race in which all the horses belonged to one stable -- for the three armies hacking deepest into Germany, the U.S. Ninth, First and Third, all belonged to the 12th Army Group of quiet, brilliant General Omar Nelson Bradley.

One day the First Army cut loose with a 25-mile push along the Thuringian corridor, south of the Harz Mountains. Next day the Ninth's 2nd Armored ("Hell on Wheels") Division amazingly spurted 50 miles to the Elbe River. Next day the Third's 6th Armored moved up 46 miles to the vicinity of Jena. Next day the same Army's famed 4th Armored sped 32 miles across the railroads and highway linking Berlin and Munich. Thereafter enemy traffic had to take the roundabout route through Dresden and Prague.

At week's end the Ninth and First had come up to the Elbe at several points along a 150-mile stretch fronting Berlin. The First had bypassed Leipzig. The Third's left wing was in the Chemnitz-Dresden area, and its right had captured the Wagner-festival city of Bayreuth.

In the south, the U.S. Seventh and the French First Armies had slower going, for they were in the outer defenses of the Nazis' Alpine bastion. But this week the Seventh plunged forward 15 miles to the Nazi "shrine city" of Nuernberg.

The Mayor Surrenders. On Bradley's front, some towns fell easily, some hard. At Weimar, birthplace of the 1919 republic, the U.S. commander had artillery covering the town and decided to try persuasion. He sent the grey-haired mayor of a nearby village into Weimar--on a bicycle--with an ultimatum. Presently the mayor of Weimar came out in a limousine and surrendered.

In Leipzig, it was a different story. Civilians, including "werewolf" boys of 14 and 15, fought with the German soldiers. The boys broke and ran when fired on by tanks; but it took the Americans 48 hours to mop up the outskirts. At week's end they were still faced by Leipzig's powerful batteries of antiaircraft guns.

Time for a Breather? At Magdeburg, where it had bridged the Elbe, the "Hell on Wheels" Division was forced to backtrack for the first time in 30 months of fighting Germans. Three enemy divisions came charging out from Berlin and flailed at the bridgehead troops with massed artillery. The Yanks yielded the bridgehead with heavy casualties, some swimming back across the 450-ft. river. Fifteen miles to the southeast, however, at Barby, other Ninth Army units held a bridgehead five miles deep.

All over Bradley's front, supply lines were strained to the snapping point. Endless truck columns labored to keep the infantry going, and the forward armor was supplied largely by air. One day C-47 transports hauled up 3,000 tons of supplies, taking wounded and liberated prisoners back on the return trip.

The Elbe River line was a natural place for Bradley's armies to take a breather, and they were plainly entitled to one. But there was no certainty they would take it.

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