SEVENTH ARMY TROOPS entering a fortress of the Maginot Line, near Bitche, France, which had been taken in the December fighting. Reduction of the strongly defended forts of the Maginot Line was halted when the Ardennes fighting began. The new Seventh Army front included the three following areas: the Saare Valley in Lorraine; the low Vosges mountains; and the northern Alsace plain between the mountains and the Rhine.
FRANCE
MEMBERS OF A SEVENTH ARMY ARTILLERY UNIT unloading powder charges for their 240-mm. howitzer (top); 3-inch gun motor carriage firing on enemy positions at night (bottom). On 20 December 1944 the 6th Army Group abandoned its offensive and relieved the Third Army in the region westward to Saarlautern to defend against any enemy penetration in Alsace-Lorraine. The offensive was stopped even though many pillboxes in the West Wall had been taken, and during the last ten days of December the Seventh Army regrouped its forces and deployed its troops.
FRANCE
CONVOY MOVING UP in the Seventh Army area during the fighting in Alsace (top); vehicles moving over snow-covered roads through the Vosges mountains (bottom).
