Aachen: The U.S. Army's Battle for Charlemagne's City in World War II (36 page)

Capt. Bobbie E. Brown, commander of Company C, had been selected for this task. At forty-one, he was closer in age to Colonel Smith than he was to any other company commander in the regiment; the average age was twenty-six. Brown was a rough-looking six-footer who had lied about his age to enlist in the Army; he was fifteen at the time, but claimed he was eighteen. The army took him. Born into a large family in Dublin, Georgia, his father died when he was just two years old; after
living with relatives the army became home to Brown in 1922, and it did not take long for him to make quite a reputation for himself. He was a skilled boxer and had scored thirty-eight victories in competitions during the inter-war years. He was also a Mustang, a sergeant who received a battlefield commission to lieutenant during the 1st Division's fighting in Sicily. By this time, Brown was a gambler and a drinker, and was scarred all over from knife and gun fights. The battalion commander who promoted him to captain after the Normandy invasion also remembered, “Bobbie had an intense desire to kill Germans and was shrewd in figuring out ways to do it. He was an expert at ambushing, patrolling, and scouting techniques. He had a sense of timing that was unusual. He was a scrapper, and when it came to soldiering he was right there. He was absolutely fearless.”
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On 7 October, McGregor and Brown made one final reconnaissance of Crucifix Hill. Brown carefully studied the ditches at the foot of the hill, estimating that they were about 75 yards short of the first belt of pillboxes and about a dozen yards wide. The pillboxes themselves looked daunting; they were generally covered with brush and branches, except for their turrets that Brown could see poking out in the direction from which he would be attacking. Several questions arose. What was on the reverse slope? How well was it fortified? Were more enemy reserves here? They discussed all these factors at length, but both McGregor and Brown knew answers were not possible without actually reconnoitering the backside of Crucifix Hill, which could not be done; it would have to wait until the day of the attack.

Lieutenant Colonel Williamson's 2nd Battalion patrols had also been conducting daylight reconnaissance during this period. While the enemy unit in Verlautenheide had been identified as multiple-company strength, there had been no way to determine the Germans’ actual dispositions; this concerned Williamson. His primary fear was that they could bring up reinforcements from behind the village without being detected. Another
concern was the avenue of advance into Verlautenheide; it was initially downhill and observers had determined that the area would be subjected to small-arms, mortar, and artillery fire if their move was detected. Williamson's men would then have to reduce several large pillboxes that guarded the ridge leading into Verlautenheide; of even greater concern was what the German reaction would be. Would artillery fire get called in from positions on Crucifix Hill? Would fire arrive from the northeast edge of Aachen? Would his men be facing frontal fire from Verlautenheide while deafening shells roared in from their rear?

For a week now, Lieutenant Colonel Peckham's 3rd Battalion had been holed up in Eilendorf, right under the nose of the Germans atop Crucifix Hill. Constant shelling and mortar fire had made their stay unpleasant; only limited reconnaissance by Captain Sawyer and others had been possible toward Hill 192. It had been determined that the Germans occupied the nearby factories in Haaren and would have excellent observation on their moves when they commenced their diversionary strike. But by now other measures had been put in place to keep the Germans off balance.

At the start of Williamson's attack toward Verlautenheide, Colonel Gibb's 16th Infantry Cannon Company and every mortar unit in his regiment would put on a show to further distract the Germans. Other moves by the 26th Infantry's 2nd and 3rd Battalions were planned to add more confusion when Crucifix Hill was attacked; Lt. Col. Derrill M. Daniel would move a company supported by tanks and TDs toward Rothe Erde, right on the edge of Aachen proper.
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His other 2nd Battalion companies would make a move up the Brand Road leading into the city. These maneuvers would hopefully convince the Germans that the core of Aachen might be under attack, but strategically the goal was to bring Daniel's companies in contact with Lt. Col. John T. Corley's 3rd Battalion men.
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They were dug in around the higher ground community of Beverau in preparation for the real fight when the 18th Infantry drew the noose around the city, and if the order came down from General Huebner to actually step into Aachen.

At 2215 hours, just ahead of midnight on 7 October, Lieutenant Colonel Williamson's 2nd Battalion of the 18th Infantry moved to Brand, where his men detrucked and continued on foot to their assembly area behind the 16th Infantry. The opening blow of the southern encirclement of Aachen began at 0300 when eleven friendly light, medium, and heavy battalions laid preplotted artillery into Verlautenheide. Mortars and other fire poured in from the 16th Infantry positions. An hour later, the infantrymen jumped off with Company E, commanded by
Capt. Hershel T. Coffman, attacking to the left and Capt. Alfred E. Koenig's Company F assaulting to the right. Surprisingly, there was little German activity in response to the American advance until a sergeant in Company F yelled too loudly at a struggling soldier. The startled defenders then filled the night sky with parachute flares, and once Koenig's command group was spotted, an enemy machine gunner opened up on them, quickly sending these men in three directions to avoid being hit.

Now absent his radioman, Captain Koenig lost all communication with his platoons and battalion.
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Yet quick thinking produced results. He knew where his men were supposed to be heading, so he dashed to the left, organized stray soldiers as he came upon them, and then slid to a sudden stop when he heard the hushed voices of a German patrol. Koenig quickly got the drop on them, and every man was mowed down. This revealed his position to others, but the American captain was still a step ahead of them; he saw a second group of Germans first, and cut them down. By this time most of his missing men had reached the edge of Verlautenheide where they were already engaged in street brawls and hand-to-hand fighting. It only took until first light to get control of the immediate situation, and Koenig's men were prepared for counterattacks.

It was the Americans’ good fortune to have a blanket of fog hanging over the area as the other companies of the 2nd Battalion moved up. Visibility improved after early morning light burned through, but by this time Captain Coffman's Company E was inside another section of Verlautenheide. It was not as easy a move for Capt. Gordon A. Jeffrey's Company G; the Germans had artillery zeroed in on his positions, but his men were able to move up after taking just a few casualties; by midmorning they were engaged in house-to-house fighting on the west side of the village.

But strengthened enemy artillery,
Panzerfausts
, mines, and poor road conditions took a devastating toll on the Shermans of Company B, 745th Tank Battalion as these men tried to come up toward midmorning to support the attack. One tank got stuck in mud before leaving Eilendorf; another was knocked out by artillery fire as it neared the railroad overpass just north of the village. A third Sherman hit a mine, blocking the road over to Verlautenheide. Soon afterward, a German scored a direct hit on another stalled tank with his
Panzerfaust
, leaving just one operational Sherman that pulled off the road into an orchard to wait out the time it would take for engineers to come up and clear the mines off the road.

A similar fate crippled a second platoon of tanks as they moved up. One Sherman fell out with mechanical problems; another hit a mine. The three remaining tanks had to stop well south of Verlautenheide. Tank commander and suburban Chicago native Sgt. Earl R. Jacobsen remembered this all too well, later saying, “We experienced the worst artillery fire I have ever seen. The tanks had scarcely an opportunity to return fire. They couldn't move.”
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Better luck enabled tank destroyers under the command of Lt. Emmett R. Duffy to lead in reducing the pillboxes outside of Verlautenheide when they got there at midmorning; his TDs fired fourteen rapid rounds at their embrasures while squads from Captain Coffman's Company E charged the back of the boxes with satchel and pole charges. Good news began to make its way to Colonel Smith's command post as the morning wore on; at noon Williamson reported that Verlautenheide was under control, with just a few stragglers still on the loose. Two of Lieutenant Duffy's TDs were in place near Company E's CP in a square guarding the northern approaches into the village; two others were farther to the south at the Company F command post; Koenig's men were watching the Quinx road center.

Earlier that morning, Colonel Smith had ordered Lieutenant Colonel Learnard to move his men out of their cellars in Eilendorf and to prepare to move up to Verlautenheide without delay. Learnard had protested, hoping Smith would wait until the “all clear” had been received from Williamson, but the anxious regimental commander insisted that they start moving. Learnard complied, but he first sent Captain McGregor up to the village to confer with Williamson's S-3, Captain Murphy, so he could learn for himself just what the situation was.

When McGregor arrived at the 2nd Battalion command post 500 yards south of the village and found Murphy, the noise from crashing mortars and artillery was horrendous. The men could barely hear each other, but Murphy nevertheless yelled in his Maine accent, “We don't really have things under control in town, Mac. Why don't you pass your companies through and at least get up on the ridge. We'll stay and clean up here.”
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McGregor's return to Eilendorf with this information prompted Lieutenant Colonel Learnard to make the decision to move his command
group up before asking his men to do the same; this was the kind of leadership that earned their respect. Within a half hour, the lead officers were running through a steady gauntlet of enemy artillery fire; miraculously they made it to the 2nd Battalion command post without taking any casualties. After Learnard contacted a relieved Colonel Smith to report their arrival, he arranged for a heavy smoke screen to be placed on either side of the approach into Verlautenheide so his rifle companies could move up under this protective cover. Ominously, an exploding enemy shell cut the line to regiment moments afterward.

Then Learnard made another decision; he personally led the command group during their move up to the extreme western edge of Verlautenheide so they could set up their forward command post and get ready for the attack on Crucifix Hill. But when they got close they found this section of the village was still sheltering some Germans. This time the officers literally fought their way through several houses, sending some running, and killing those who tried to fight back so they could finally lay claim to their new post.

It was now 1000 hours; Learnard radioed Maj. Robert E. Green, his executive officer, and told him to start infiltrating the companies forward, one at a time. The called-for smoke was laid in, but by now the wind had picked up and the intended cover simply blew away. The Germans smelled blood. As the 1st Battalion companies made their way past the discouraging line of Shermans that had been stopped earlier, hostile artillery started hammering away. “Casualties were high in all companies,” one officer remembered later. “This was despite our extreme caution, despite the use we made of all possible cover and concealment, despite the perfect dispersion. In spots where Jerry could not directly observe us, he had previously registered his supporting fires. We had to move in single file; it was a slow tortuous move.”
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Company A, commanded by Capt. Herbert A. Scott-Smith Jr., was hit the hardest; he lost nearly a platoon of men. Captain Brown managed to get nearly all of his soldiers into a small shaded cemetery near a church on the edge of Verlautenheide, but Learnard wanted them in the cellars of the houses nearer to the CP. It was here that Brown's pensive men shifted to, and together they huddled over their situation maps, hurriedly studying the pillbox locations on Crucifix Hill one last time. The company's executive officer, Michigan native Lt. Clement Van Wagoner, was
giving pep talks to the mostly very young soldiers, leaving Brown free to think through any last-minute adjustments. What he did next was what he knew best; he would not endanger his men without knowing as much as he could about what waited outside of the cellars. He made the decision to personally reconnoiter out toward Crucifix Hill.

I had my artillery and 81mm mortar observers get on a housetop where they could observe the objective area. I had also placed the heavy machineguns on other nearby housetops so they could have a good field of fire. I then put out my covering force and had all the platoon leaders join their platoons to await my return from my ground reconnaissance.
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Captain Brown took his SCR-536 radio and raced off westward by himself. For a short time he wasn't spotted, but hostile rifle fire came in as he got closer to the hill. Then enemy machine gunners found him. Brown reacted:

I hit the ground and crawled in the direction of the small arms fire and again several more bursts from machineguns came in my direction. I then withdrew to the cemetery where I had placed my covering force. One of them opened fire, and three enemy put their hands up and surrendered. I took the prisoners back to my command post, where I discovered the Ranger Platoon also had 22 others in a cellar.
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It was at this point that Brown assembled all of his platoon leaders and reviewed the final attack plan. His 1st Platoon would move along the trail leading up the right side of Crucifix Hill, reducing each pillbox that got in the way; the 2nd Platoon would attack on the left slope with the same mission. The attached Ranger Platoon was being used as a security force to protect against any counterattacks; they were given just one box to reduce. Brown ordered his 60mm mortars to first go into a position just outside of the village, and then move up with the attached heavy machine guns from Company D upon his command; it would come by radio. The 81mm mortar spotters and forward artillery observers were to
accompany the two assault platoons so they could call down fire and adjustments.