As In Normandy . . .

Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt well knew which was the most vulnerable sector: the Aachen area where Lieut. General Courtney Hicks Hodges' U.S. First Army had already sunk a spearhead aimed at the Cologne plain. The Germans had watched for nearly two months as the Americans moved in 1,000 guns, massed a whole new army--the U.S. Ninth of tall, bald, bowlegged Lieut. General William H. Simpson.

Lieut. General Omar Nelson Bradley well knew that the Germans had bolstered their fortifications and had had time to mass their own guns. As in Normandy, it would take a coordinated attack, by all forces to make a break. Bradley knew that great results are produced only by great battles. This was to be the greatest battle the Americans had fought in Europe. They had superiority: two men to the Germans' one, four guns to one, five tanks to one, several hundred planes to one.

As in Normandy, the aim was to smash the German Army, to finish off the war in the west by quick exploitation of a break. For the Germans it was a case of stand and die--to make so many American and British soldiers die that another such battle could not be fought this winter.

As in 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-Duerenhills--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.

Expanding Pressure. But Germans did stand up to fight and die, to cling tenaciously to the German soil, to patch the breaches with more men against a grinding weight that expanded and extended northward to the British Venlo sector as the battle went through three smoke-clouded days and fiery nights.

By this week cracks had begun to show in the hard German crust. By the fifth day the Americans could count their advances in miles instead of hundreds of yards.

On the ten-mile sector east of Aachen, battlewise First Army troops found they could lunge instead of slog. They lunged upon Eschweiler, nearly midway between Aachen and Dueren and astride the six-lane Adolf Hitler Highway to Cologne, only 28 miles away. There the battle turned fluid. More Germans rushed to that gap in their dike, launched weak, futile counterattacks.

To the 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 Wuerm valley for three miles. The crust had softened. There were signs of limited German withdrawals.

Matter of Time. The Germans had one hope: to husband their reserves, to protect the Rhine's west bank. But they were faced with a threat that the battle for the Cologne plain might become a battle for their survival. By this week it appeared that the enemy might have to choose between exhaustion under the terrific pounding or, risking the break Bradley sought, retreat to the Rhine and the gateway to the Ruhr.

To Bradley's men the objective of the Rhine appeared to be a matter of time--and of how many Germans might still choose to die. Perhaps the next two weeks would tell. In that time, at least, the enemy would know no rest. There would be more multiple blows; the Allies had ample reserves. Largely free of its coast-clearing chores, the Canadian-Polish army of Lieut. General Henry D. G. Crerar was now a threat to extend the offensive northward. There would be more pressure, surprises--as there had been in Normandy, once the Allies had set themselves to overpower the enemy by weight of men and munitions.

The day might not be far off when "Ike" Eisenhower would have to make his most fateful decision--to throw all the vast weight of his reserves, including his big airborne army, into one bold stroke for finality.

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