It then pivoted south through badly ravaged Crailsheim in several short encampments over the next three weeks, facing diminishing German resistance in areas then falling well behind rapidly advancing front lines. In late April Company B was tasked to support the fast-moving 12th Armored Division in its drive deep into Bavaria to prevent the establishment of a German National Redoubt. With engineers building bridges as fast as the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS could blow them, the 12th roared toward the finish in the Seventh Army's race to the Alps to seal off the Brenner Pass to Nazi escape; a prize nabbed at the wire by the rival 103rd Infantry Division on 4 May. VE Day was celebrated four days later with H&S company stationed in Göppingen, 20 miles southeast of Stuttgart, and forward elements of the 289th having sprawled as far afield as Austria and northern Italy before war's end.