 In more than one city, particularly Homburg, looting and pillage were rampant.Running the gantlet of American fighter aircraft through the Pfaelzer Forest, the amorphous mass of retreating Germans faced still a fourth American threat—General Brooks's VI Corps, which had followed closely the German withdrawal from northeastern Alsace and on 19 March had begun to assault the Siegfried Line on either side of Wissembourg.There, "General" Petersen's XC "Korps" was charged with holding the fortifications and denying access to the flatlands along the Rhine.