Patton's Pawns: The 94th US Infantry Division at the Siegfried Line

by Tony Le Tissier

The 94th US Infantry Division was an organization formed late in the Second World War, made up largely of draft-deferred university students as enlisted men and an officer corps pulled together from various domestic postings with unfortunate consequences for mutual trust and respect.
Initially used as part of the force blockading the Brittany ports after D-Day, in December of 1944, the division was incorporated into General Patton’s Third Army south of the Moselle-Saar Triangle, the base of which was a portion of the Siegfried Line known as the Orscholz Switch. Its first combat experience came in battalion-sized attacks during that terrible winter while the Battle of the Bulge raged to the north, and the Division suffered heavy casualties, many due to the ferocity of the winter weather. Patton, with characteristic zeal, excoriated the division’s officers and senior NCOs for the rate of non-combat casualties. Thereafter, the division was ordered forward on an all-out assault to break through the Siegfried Line. After horrific fighting against entrenched defenders, with ice turning to mud as spring approached, on February 19, 1945, the 94th broke through to open the roads to Trier and the Rhine.

This book is the most comprehensive study to date of the fierce fighting between the 94th U.S. Infantry Division and their German counterparts during that spring of 1945. It sheds new light on the achievements of the outnumbered division in penetrating Germany’s Westwall. With characteristic verve and detail, Tony Le Tissier narrates the action and illuminates the tribulations and sacrifices of American soldiers who won their laurels at great cost.

   

Genres: World War II

376 pages, Hardcover

First published April 28, 2007

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Le Tissier's Pattton's Pawns is the story of the American 94th divisions struggle to eliminate the German army from the Moselle-Saar region of Germany to the Rhine in March, 1945. It draws atttention to considerable fighting power of the 94th. It also makes the point that the 1945 campaign to conquer Nazi Germany would not be easy. Instead it was a costly struggle and the Germans fought very hard as Le Tisser's illustrates this very well. This is a military history book and readers should not expect light reading. I wish he would have drawn on more oral accounts rather then the main source the History of the 94th by Lieutenant Laurence Brynes. I read somewhere but I can't recall the source that he conducted tours of this area to many of veterans of the 94th at one time. I am surprised that he did not interview any of these veterans on tour. There insight could have been very helpful in this book. Also, the omission of William Foley's Visions from a Foxhole is missing. This book contains first hand knowledge of that exact experience in the Moselle-Saar campaign and I think would have added to Le Tissier's combat narrative. He does mention meeting Foley in his preface, but I am puzzled why he didn't use his memoir. The other problem lies in the maps that are in the book. They are poorly printed with names of places indecipherable even with a magnifing glass. The book overall seems to me to be a missed opportunity on a important aspect of the War.

[Katie]

My Dad was in the 94th, so this book gave great details about where/when he was during his time in WWII. I've used it to map out a tour I am taking my family on.

[Penecks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes you want a book that goes right in hard. There's no overarching exposition, no swirly tales of childhood memories or a dull overview of the war. Le Tissier basically drops you in with the boots on the ground to detailed platoon level actions around the 94ths advance to the Rhine. The narrative strikes a somewhat unusual balance between the somewhat dry tactical overviews found in some of the deeper histories that pull from divisional sources, while also maintaining a mostly objective view of the lower level units.

Sometimes one wonders how the author knows as much as he does without using more personal accounts; though this doesn't really detract from the book. What does take it down a notch is the simply terrible maps; unless one is well versed in the many German hamlets around the Saar, they may find themselves going back and forth through the text, trying to piece together the positions of multiple regiments. The maps themselves are "topographical" which means in the low resolution print they are nearly unreadable, while often comically excluding either important areas of the text or positioning units randomly throughout the map area with no reasoning as to when or how they got there. Even two large maps clearly detailing all villages in the text would have sufficed far better.

In spite of that, the book is nevertheless one of the better accounts of the late war in the West.

[Rusty Tobin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reads like a day-to-day field report rather than a narrative history but excellent source for tracing activities of soldiers in the 94th DIvision from September 1944t through March 1945. Has a unit index for the 94th as well as other units such as XX Corps who worked alongside the 94th. I was able to trace the bridges my father built with the 135th Combat Engineers so was pleased with the detail.

[Kent Beck · Rating 4 out of 5]

Armor gets all the glory, but grunts did much of the work (and the dying). This was not a unit with which I was familiar. What I found most interesting was the contrast between the slog back and forth to get through the Siegfried Line and the relative ease with which things proceeded once they were over the Moselle. A solid read for a WW2 history buff.

[Parke · Rating 3 out of 5]

My grandfather's division. He has a reference for leading an assault on a German castle. They were also known as "Patton's Golden Nugget"...

[Chuck Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because my Dad was in the 94th Infantry Division in World War II but rarely talked about it

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

Couldn't finish it. Way too much detail for my taste.