Chapter 48-27

27 Fort l’Aisne - Metz next mission

9Nov44

US mission 707

"Back to Metz, France. We bombed directly ahead Patton's troops of and hit a large Fort l’Aisne fortress with 2,000 pounders [ part of the famed Maginot Line ]. All three divisions hit the same target, and now Patton is making some advances." Foster

The XII Corps attack on 8 November had jumped off with only such air support as the XIX TAC fighter-bombers could fly late in the day. The weather was slightly better on 9 November, however, and the AAF was able to intervene on the scale originally planned for the Third Army offensive. The chief targets for the medium and heavy bombers were the Metz forts, but the air plan called for some attention to be given to the Thionville defenses and the marshaling yards at Saarbruecken and Saarlautern. The Eighth AirForce put 1,299 planes (B-17's and B-24's) into the operation on 9 November, 1,223 of them reaching the target zones and dropping a total of 3,753 tons in the form of 1,000- and 2,000-pound bombs. Most of the heavy bombers released their loads from a height of more than 20,000 feet. The targets were often invisible through the clouds. At Metz, 689 of the heavies struck at seven forts which the Third Army had marked as priority targets. None of the forts were hit, although some damage was done to the enemy works, wire, and communications. The 432 planes sent against the Saarbruecken marshaling yards also returned with pessimistic reports, while at Thionville the air attack missed all the targets. The IX Bombardment Division dispatched 94 medium bombers to join in the aerial attack, but cloudy weather prevented all except 74 from actually taking part in the operation. Four of the Metz forts had been assigned as targets for the mediums; clouds intervened and these planes were turned to hit the German road centers at Dieuze and Faulquemont. The air effort on 9 November was marked by volume of bombing, rather than by accuracy; it did little to shake the enemy and had relatively small effect on the course of subsequent ground operations. However, the old ally of the Third Army, General Weyland's XIX TAC, better fitted than the bombers to operate in this kind of weather, gave close and effective support to the attacking divisions all along the army front on 9 November, intervening with such marked effect as to delay the movement of the main German reserves for nearly twenty-four hours.13

US Army combined arms center account of the Metz battle