that was general everywhere except in the pillbox belt near Saarbrücken and on the flatlands near the Rhine. On the right wing of the XV Corps, men of the 100th Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Withers A. Burress) drove quickly to the outskirts of the fortress town of Bitche. Perhaps aided by the fact that they had done the same job before in December, they gained dominating positions on the fortified hills around the town, leaving no doubt that they would clear the entire objective in short order the next day, 16 March. The only counterattack to cause appreciable concern hit a battalion of the 3rd Division′s 7th Infantry. Veterans of combat from the North African campaign onward, the regiments of the 3rd Division (Maj. Gen. John W. O'Daniel) were making the main effort in the center of the XV Corps in the direction of Zweibrücken and the Kaiserslautern corridor. Although a company of supporting tanks ran into a dense minefield, disabling four tanks and stopping the others, a battalion of the 7th Infantry fought its way into the village of Uttweiler, just across the German frontier. Then an infantry battalion from the 17. SS Panzergrenadierdivision, supported by nine assault guns, struck back. The Germans quickly isolated the American infantrymen but could not force them from the village. Supported by a platoon of tank destroyers and the regimental antitank company organized as a bazooka brigade, another of the 7th Infantry's battalions counterattacked. The men knocked out four multiple-barrel FlaKwagens and seven assault guns and freed the besieged battalion. On the Seventh Army's right wing, pointed toward the Wissembourg Gap, divisions of General Brooks's VI Corps experienced, with the exception of the 3rd Algerian Division, much the same type of opposition. Although all four attacking divisions had to overcome the initial obstacle of a river, either the Moder or a tributary, they accomplished the job quickly with predawn assaults. The Germans were too thinly stretched to do more than man a series of strongpoints. On the corps left wing, the 42nd Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Harry J. Collins) overcame the added obstacle of attacking along the spine of the Lower Vosges by avoiding the roads and villages in the valleys and following the crests of the high ground. Pack mules—already proved in earlier fighting in the High Vosges—provided the means of supply. As with the 3rd Division, a battalion of the 103rd