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altipueri -> RE: What happened outside Paderborn? (1/23/2022 9:56:26 AM)
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There’s a good account of some episodes of that fight in “Spearhead” by Adam Makos. The quick rough outline is that one of the columns of the 3rd US armored division, hastening north to join with 2nd armored division coming south so as to pocket the Ruhr, got ambushed one night and shot up.
We had learned from the failure at Falaise that hesitancy in fluid warfare is more costly in the long run than audacity. General Maurice Rose, commanding officer of the division, was with the column. The mission was of overriding importance, and time was of the essence. He was killed in action, the column was a shambles, but the other columns forged ahead. Paderborn itself was taken shortly thereafter, and the linkup with 2nd armored was accomplished.
300 000 Germans were taken prisoner, including 24 generals, and Walter Model committed suicide. So it was a win, even if we lost a promising general and a batch of good soldiers in the course of the fight.
At Paderborn, there was a one-on-one tank duel between the lone Pershing tank in the division, and a German Panther. By the astute trick of firing his HE chambered round into the dirt between the two tanks, the Pershing gunner bought time for the loading of an AP shell before the dust had cleared, and the Pershing won. That incident may well have been the last tank vs tank clash on the western front. German resistance more or less collapsed with the surrender of the Ruhr pocket.
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Cribbed from somewhere on the interweb - quora I think.
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