Two different maps, two differing attempts to explain the same story.

 

The "After the Battle" (AtB) map, on the right, is clearly based on that found in Rendezvous with Destiny (RWD). However, there are several important differences in the identifcation of locations where certain events took place. Notably, the location of where the first bridge after Inzell was out is marked differently on each map. The account in No Victory in Valhalla (NViV), created from veteran's descriptions, has a bridge out both at Inzell and beyond right around Weissbach. AtB's map shows a bridge out south of Weissbach, not at Inzell or on the approach to Weissbach. The veteran's accounts detail being fired upon and taking casualties at the far end of Weissbach. This, according to NViV, is where the last battle casualties occurred, not at the Unterjettenberg bridge crossing, as depicted in the RWD map.

 

A second notable difference is where exactly the 3rd ID was held up, or was holding the 101st ABD up, due to sabotaged or blown bridges, and, according to some accounts, sporratic fire, not to forget orders from their commanding officer(s) to let no one pass on the road until their own unit reached Berchtesgaden. More recent accounts place this location near or at the Saalback river crossing near Piding before one reaches Bad Reichenhall. RWD puts the blocking much closer to Seigsdorf, and apparently, the GFA] account, in a general way, does as well. In contrast, the most recent books by E company men ( more recent renderings) , tend to either indicate or suggest that they stayed in Bad Reichenhall that night before they moved on to Berchtesgaden. If this is the case, is there a railway that would meet the description given by Webster of them following the bed of and overlooking the blown bridge as they bypassed it, and what of the use of the term autobahn? Webster uses the term autobahn in his unit delay and detour descriptions, but if they were in Bad Reichenhall that evening, they would have no longer been on it, to continue on it the following morning. Webster does describe wounded german soldiers in the town, and there were wounded soldiers in Bad Reichenhall. But, they could just as well have been in Teisendorf or any town in the region.

 

The descriptions given by earlier sources would seem to indicate that the 101st (506) was not blocked so much from the bridge loss as from temporarily being prevented from moving forward by the 3rd ID.   There are several smaller bridge crossings which can potentially meet this general description. But the question arises: How does David Webster's account fit into these accounts? A dirt road was described by Webster as being used to get around the blown bridge, but this was on the day following their initial halt.. His physical description of a delayed river crossing seems to match most closely to that of the Saalach at Piding though some details still do not match up. 

 

The key to locating this place or the path they took is Webster's description of following a railway bed. None are to be found back at Achthal where the RWD map depicts a bridge as being out. There are none especially close to Tiesendorf and certainly not with the positioning to overlook a blown bridge on the autobahn. There is one along and across the Salaach.

 

However, one also has to pose the question: is Webster's published account describing the initial blocking delay given in RWD, or is it a description of another delay on the following day? Webster's published account does have discrapancies in it, such as the description of stopping at ChiemSee after they cross the blocked bridge. And there is a one day difference  in the article published in the Saturday Evening Post of the same few days.  Whereever the blocking occurred, it had to be east of and therefore after their passing through ChiemSee and Siegsdorf. If they did stay in Bad Reichenhall it is possible he was describing Saalachsee, not Chiemsee. But this path would have led them further west back to the route the 3rd Battalion was to take into Berchtesgaden. There is a bridge high above the Unterjettenberg bridge but the the blown bridge across the Saalach there is not hundreds of feet above a rocky gorge for that matter, neither is the bridge at Piding, though if the water was lower when they crossed, it is a much closer description that the Unterjettenberg bridge. Following this route, one would also come to a narrow dripping gorge so narrow at times there is only enough room for the road and the river.  And there are enough turns along it to bring a thought of losing a sense of direction or location. But, if Webster never did come that way, it is plausible enough to use the descriptions of other routes of approach. One other point though. When they did arrive at the billets, Webster did not mention that they were going back up the road they had come down if they had come from Bad Reichenhall to Berchtesgaden via Winkl and Stanggass. I thought that was odd.

 

Are other descriptions included in the their current location in the text due to poor editing of the published account, or through some confusion by Webster himself? For example, there are also descriptions of Dachau and other work camp survivors later in the text. It is possible they were met further along on the road as they were traveling to return to their homes, but contextually and chronologically, it would have made more sense to describe these things when they were actually at the prison camps, which are only mentioned peripherally or as having been in the past in the published work. It seems odd that such a horrific event was largely undescribed.

 

The best solution currently is the series of Bridges at Piding.

 

Clancy would have been billeted in a German home the night before their final approach to Berchtesgaden. He too would have ridden in a DWK and been turned back near or in Inzell in order to go around the blown bridges. Being in the same platoon as David Webster, his route and mode of travel and route of travel would have been largely the same.