In addition, the First Army commander General Hermann Foertsch had managed to accumulate a sizable conglomeration of other troops, two battalions of an engineer school, several regular engineer battalions, replacement artillery and antiaircraft units, Volkssturm, a few tanks and assault guns, and a miscellany, including several hundred Hitler Youth, belonging to the combat commander of Heilbronn.

Before daylight on 4 April, the third battalion of the 100th Division's 398th Infantry Regiment slipped silently across the Neckar in assault boats a mile or so north of Heilbronn, starting from the suburb of Neckargartach.

[3] As the men turned south toward the city after daybreak, a German battalion, using, in some cases, tunnels to emerge in the rear of the U.S. troops, counterattacked sharply.

Although three of the 100th Division's battalions eventually crossed into the little bridgehead north of the city to push south into a collection of factories on the northern outskirts, the going always was slow.

Protected from shelling by sturdy buildings, the Germans seldom surrendered except at the point of a rifle, though many of the Hitler Youth had had enough after only a brief flurry of fanatic resistance.

There engineers had nearly completed a bridge during the afternoon of the 7th when German artillery, controlled by observers in the hills on the east edge of Heilbronn, found the range.

General Foertsch's hasty but surprisingly strong position along the Jagst-Neckar crescent had required eleven days of often heavy fighting to reduce.