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food, and ammunition flown to these advanced strips appreciably contributed to the success of that army.
Another company from the 825th, traveling with the XX Corps, prepared eight fields for supply operations in the vicinity of Erfurt. During this operation, the unit had numerous brushes with the enemy, capturing a garrison of 29 German soldiers who, upon seeing the unit's four-ton truck and trailer carrying a D-7 caterpillar, thought it was a new secret weapon and surrendered. In another instance, a guard detail killed four SS troopers in a cellar fight after the Nazis had terrorized the townspeople for having surrendered to the Americans.
During the same period, elements of the 816th Engineer Aviation Battalion arrived at a site near Limburg, Germany, after a motor convoy of nearly 100 rough miles over battle-scarred roads. In an hour they had the strip properly smoothed, checked, and marked. Then the engineers undertook emergency flying control until the regular Air Corps team arrived.
More than 300 planes a day arrived at this field furnishing precious gasoline to a nearby armored division, and evacuating wounded by the hundreds to well-equipped hospitals behind the Rhine. Even while, the great C-47's were churning in and out of the field with their valuable cargoes, the engineers were laboring to make the drome larger and more permanent in order to base a Photo-Reconnaissance Group soon to arrive.
Meanwhile a detachment of the 852nd, moving with an armored group, arrived at a site only to find it well ditched from end to end by the retreating Germans. The detachment's heavy equipment had been delayed along the way and was not on hand, to assist them. The platoon worked far into the night filling the ditch and smoothing the field with hand tools, and when the sun rose the following morning the field was ready and transport planes began to land. The same day the group moved with the Second Armored Division to another site, where, without rest or sleep, another field was made operational.
An indication of the terrific quantities of supplies moved to the spearheads in Germany by air transport is shown by a few total figures of the first 19 days of the drive. More than 11,300,000 gallons of gasoline
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