|
The
liberation of Woippy
| Date
: 16 November 1944 |
| Location
of the action : Woippy, France |
| Unit
in the area : Company "E"
"F" et "G", 377th Inf. Reg. |
Woippy was without citizens when in the morning of
November 16th 1944, the Companies E F and G of the 2nd
Battalion of the 377th Infantry Regiment entered Woippy on
rue de Ladonchamps. They were coming from
Maizieres-les-Metz. The 377th Infantry Regiment, i on of
the units of the 95th Infantry Division, active in Europe
since September 1944 until May 8th 1945. They were part of
the heart of the XXth Corps of the 3rd Army of General
Patton.They had their baptism of fire on October 19th,
1944 close to Cheminot and then left to relieve the 357th
Infantry Regiment in the region of Uckange - Rombas
- Maizieres-les-Metz.
On
Novermber 15th, leaving the south of Maizieres, the 2nd
and the 3rd Battalions started marching in direction of
Metz. The 2/377 advanced from th West of the railroad bed
close to Woippy, and the 3/377 was on the other seide,
next to La Maxe. The battalions passed Saint Remy without
experiencing battle. The first serious engagement happened
at the Bellevue Bridge, which was guarded by a nest of
German machine gunners, and was quickly neutralized by a
section of the Company E. At the end of the march, the
Companies E and F troops settled in Sainte-Agathe. All
night along they were harassed by ennemy patrols and fire
from the Deroulede fort. On this Journey of November 15th,
66 German soldiers and 4 Germans officers were captured
and 8 pieces of 88 destroyed.
 |
|
Above :
During
the evening of November 16th, a patrol of the 2nd
Battalion from the 377th Infantry Regiment enters in
Woippy, passing very close to corpses of horses. |
the enemy
defenses. Two Germans soldiers were killed, three were
wounded, and then he took two prisoners."
The
village was taken at 2.00PM in the afternoon. A Colonel
and three major officers of the German Regiment were
captured along with 4 pieces of 105 mm and an important
stock of ammunitions.
But
the two forts, still heavily defended, needed to be
captured: Deroulede and Gambetta. Company E moved in
theafternnon towad Deroulede, but feel back with the
deluge of fire and steel (it will be taken eventually on
November 22 by a patrol from 2nd Battalion). At 5.00PM
that afternoon, the Company L, arriving from La Maxe,
advanced openly towards the Gambetta Fort. At lines, all
hell broke loose: the canons from Gambetta and and the
fort at Saint-Julien opened fire at the same moment. In
less than five minutes, the first and second section are,
for the most part, devastated, the third section fared a
little better but took cover on the ground, 200 meters
from the fort, too close to request support from the
artillery. Only members of the reinforcement troops (from
the 778th Tank Battalion) fired through the trees, and
managed to destroy some of the ammunitions at the fort.
Using a bazooka, Alnano, a non-commissioned officer,
reduced to silence one machine gun and an 88mm cannon and,
in the process, killed all the attending soldiers.
Around 1.00PM, Company K arrived as reinforcementss and
reached the woods, and dug-outs around the fort, but theyr
are stopped by the furious fire that resumed from the
Gemans. Captain Samuel T. Pinckney, Company K, lead the
assault until the moment when he's wounded. In spite of
that, he exhorts his men to continue the attack when a
second shell of mortars put an end to its days. He
receipts the D.S.C on a purely posthumous basis.
 |
|
Above :
Column
of the 377th Infantry Regiment making their way
toward Metz passing Quatre-Bornes the 17 November
1944.
|
At
5.00PM, their position was untenable and their losses were
heavy, and the ewo companies decided to withdraw closer to
the Saint-Eloy farm; thanks to the night cover they
returned to La Maxe. The next Morning on November 17th,
the 3rd Battalion passed around the Gambetta fort and
joined the forces with the second battalion at Woippy, and
together they davances in the direction of Metz trough the
Quatre-Bornes, Devant-les-Pont and Metz-North.
Woippy is liberated, but Woippy had been severely hurt by
the war. Bacause of its travails, Woippy is cited, in
October 1948, for the order de la Nation and, on June 12th
1949, is awarded the War Cross with the Silver Star. The
citation read : "Village of Lorraine was harshly
treated by the bombings and the battles fought on its
properties with the result that 8 were killed, 3 wounded,
and 40% of the homes and businesses destroyed. Woippy, in
spite of the rough times, showed admirable moral strength
and harbored strong resistance, a fact we know because of
the numbers of families that were deported or thrown
out".
My special
thanks to Seymour L Schnuer and all his family for this
admirable work and for their great help for the
translation in French.
|
Rhineland 