As the US 4th and 28th Infantry Divisions struggled to breach the West Wall in the second week of September 1944, V Corps’ armored element, 5th Armored Division, enjoyed a degree of success that eluded their infantry brethren.

Holding the southern flank of V Corps, 5 AD was tasked with covering over 30 miles of the corps front; its Combat Command A maintaining a tenuous connection with Third Army to the south.

Meanwhile, 5 AD’s CCR engaged in probing West Wall positions near Wallendorf.

Failing to provoke a response from the enemy, V Corps commander Gen. Leonard T. Gerow ordered CCR to execute a limited attack that struck the extreme right of German LXXX Corps, a hinge point between the First and Seventh Armies.

Fixed fortifications were few in this area; the enemy had relied upon terrain rather than concrete to block an advance. The area was only occupied on 14 September by an Alarmbattaillon equipped mainly with small arms.

Attacking across the Sauer River on 14 Sept., CCR overcame enemy resistance at Wallendorf and on the following day defeated without loss a weak counterattack by an understrength company of Mark IV tanks from Panzer Lehr near Niedersdorf.

CCR had before it a rare opportunity: with his armor now roaming the roads beyond Wallendorf, Gerow sensed he could swing his tanks north and come in behind German forces resisting 4 & 28 ID, breaking open a corps sized hole at the West Wall.

Wise to the danger, Gen. von Knobelsdorff, German First Army commander, pride loose from OB West the 19th Volksgrenadier Div to contain the threat. The first German troops made contact with the Americans at dusk on 16 Sept.

CCR had not pushed east until its artillery had closed with the armor and attached infantry of the 112th Regt. This gave the enemy time to bring up his own guns, blocking the advance to Bitburg, the line of departure for the northern drive.

Heavy fighting ensued, and CCR’s advance was slowed, but not halted. By evening on 16 Sept., the 112th Inf. had reached a point 5 miles west of Bitburg. 5 AD G-2 section accurately estimated enemy resistance as lacking staying power.

Despite the stiffness of German resistance, the most he could manage was a “papier-mâché cordon” held by disparate elements of I SS Panzer Corps & 2nd Panzer Div. blocking the capture of Bitburg.

Nonetheless, a halt was called on the evening of 16 September.

Why? V Corps was only able to undertake its penetration of the West Wall because Gen. Courtney Hodges had withheld gasoline reserves meant for the corps operating on the southern flank of the British to the north.

Hodges, ever the cautious commander, had ordered his corps commanders that attacks should halt in place if “serious resistance” was encountered. Supplies of fuel and ammunition were at a premium and the farther east V Corps pushed the more precarious it’s supply position became.

Gen. Siegfried Westphal, writing after the war, claimed that the Americans had missed a golden opportunity: German forces were only then organizing in the Eifel, and the absence of ready reserves would have unraveled “the whole West Front.”

All of this was occurring as Market Garden was about to get underway. In order to exploit a corps-sized breach of the West Wall would have required a cancellation of operations countenanced by SHAEF.

However, it shows how many “opportunities” existed that Sept. of 1944.

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