Sore Spots

In the Bavarian hills last week Lieut. General Alexander M. Patch's U.S. Seventh Army hit a weak spot and found a German sore spot. His loth Armored Division carved a startling 30-mile breakthrough to within 45 miles of the upper waters of the Danube. This was a delicate area for the Nazis--the Napoleonic route of invasion toward Vienna. Over it Patch's men might strike through to split Germany.

Some divisions of the Seventh found sore spots of their own. At Aschaffenburg, cleaning up behind a U.S. Third Army thrust, the 45th Infantry suffered heavy casualties in a week-long battle.

Aschaffenburg had a fanatical Nazi commander, Major von Lambert. In the streets he had hanged officers who sought to surrender (see cut). He had organized and armed old men, women & children. Young girls hurled grenades from roofs. Wounded soldiers from five military hospitals joined the battle. The major's garrison had to be rooted out of practice pillboxes and bunkers which had been set up in an officer-training camp.

The 45th fought in the searing heat of burning buildings. Finally U.S. airmen went to work in earnest, bombed Aschaffenburg until there was nothing left to bomb or shell. Then Nazi von Lambert did what he had killed others for suggesting: he came out with a white flag.

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