Aachen: The U.S. Army's Battle for Charlemagne's City in World War II (49 page)

The men of the 116th were not used to this kind of combat. The Germans were close, often within range of a hand grenade, but were so effectively dug in that they only rarely showed themselves. When they did, even for a few seconds, the impact on the Americans was usually deadly. The 29ers [a general reference to 29th Infantry Division soldiers] learned that movement of any kind in the open, even at a dead run, was likely to attract the attention of an invisible German sniper, who was surprisingly skilled at his job. If the 116th were to push the Germans out of Wuerselen, obviously the only way to do it was to reduce strong points by direct assault, one after the other, a process that might eventually succeed but would take time and inflict a number of casualties that could cripple the regiment's spirit for a long time.
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The Iron Knights fared a bit better during the day. Company G's tankers got about a thousand yards closer to Würselen, but these men were stopped when their infantry had to withdraw to cover because of the combined hell of enemy artillery, mortar, and
Panzerfaust
fires; Mark Vs also struck, but this attack was repulsed without losing any ground. In late afternoon, Captain Burt's Company B attacked to cut off the roadway that the Germans had used for their approach into Company G's positions and took this crossroad.

Progress was being made, but at an excruciatingly slow pace. That night, an increasingly perturbed General Hodges bypassed Corlett and called General Hobbs directly, “expressing great dissatisfaction” that the gap was not being closed.
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Nor was anyone happy with the outcomes the following day. “Wuerselen was defended fanatically by excellent troops,” noted Major Greer's 3rd Battalion of the 120th Infantry's after-action report.
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His men pushed deep into the western part of town, “up to 600 meters south of the settlement,” according to the 116th Panzer Division historian.
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But a counterattack by Armored Reconnaissance Battalion 116 and the division reserve, the 1st Battalion of Regiment 156, “threw the enemy back to the settlement.” This counterattack was supported by six
Jagdpanthers
, heavily armored, turretless, 88mm gun-equipped versions of the
Panther. Major Greer lost five of his tanks and twelve of his men; all were killed, including two officers. During the fighting, heavy German artillery fire blasted two stories away from an observation tower and “constantly shook [Greer's] command post.”
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CPs were under attack all day; the 116th Panzer Division reported:

In these battles, the commander of 1CO, Panzer Grenadier Regiment 156, Oberleutnant Kurt Heiberger, and Oberfeldwebel Helfried Orb of 3CO, Armored Reconnaissance Battalion 116, distinguished themselves. Orb and his platoon rescued the command post of 2CO; it had been surrounded at the Scherberg schoolhouse. They brought four comrades back to freedom and captured 15 Americans.
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German forces at the crossroads just north of Würselen also stopped the 66th Armored Regiment companies. Capt. Joseph S. Roberts's Company G was repulsed by blistering
Panzerfaust
fire, and he lost three tanks. Company H, commanded by Capt. Cameron J. Warren, barely reached the roadway before being stopped. Captain Burt's Company B was the only unit that gained yardage; his tanks ground forward about 300 yards, but two were knocked out. During this time, Burt again displayed outstanding courage; he dismounted his own tank several times to direct friendly artillery fire and remained in the open for nearly an hour, calling in adjustments. Captain Roberts also dismounted his tank while under fire and went forward to regroup his infantrymen and reorganize his tanks. Sgt. Dozier K. Smith was later recognized for his gallantry when he risked his life by racing 150 yards toward the German line so he could give first aid to a wounded tanker. Sgt. Arden W. Gatzke of Company H remembered:

We went about a hundred yards past [a] group of houses and pulled up behind a brick house and a brick fence. The road in front of the house was the dividing line between us and the Germans. One tank of ours got hit and the tank commander got a broken arm. As he jumped off the tank he broke both ankles. Rest of the crew unhurt. We were under heavy artillery fire all night. Raining.
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It was just as grim elsewhere around Würselen. The 116th Infantry made little progress during the day; advances were measured in yards with no meaningful ground or objectives gained by the regiment in the past seventy-two hours. Eight days had now passed since closing the gap looked inevitable, but there were still thousands more yards to go. General Corlett, under increasing pressure from Army's clearly impatient General Hodges, phoned General Hobbs at 1920 and told him, “I'm going to give you an order to attack all along the line and close the gap.”
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According to witnesses, the words “close the gap” were repeated four times.

Hobbs's G-3, Lt. Col. Harold E. Hassenfelt, later modestly admitted “that he was the one responsible for the division's plan to close the gap on 16 October.”
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This plan featured an attack all along the line as General Corlett had called for; the main effort fell onto the shoulders of Colonel Sutherland's 119th Infantry. Lieutenant Colonel Cox's 2nd Battalion would relieve the 1st Battalion in North Würselen before first light, then attack southward by way of the western fringes of the village. “Our plan was not to push directly through Wuerselen to cut the highway,” Cox noted.
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In doing so his men would actually be closer to the eastern banks of the Wurm River than they would to be to Würselen proper, thereby avoiding any fighting through the village; going down the east side of the river would also leave the pillboxes along this route on Cox's right flank with their aperture openings conveniently facing westward. The battalion's objective was to seize Hill 194 just across the Aachen-Würselen highway, northwest of Ravelsberg Hill.

In the new scheme of operations Lieutenant Colonel Herlong's 1st Battalion and Brown's 3rd Battalion would cross the Wurm and move into Kohlscheid; Herlong's men would mop up here while Lieutenant Colonel Brown's forces pivoted off the southern edge of the village and continued to fight their way to their objective, a hilltop near Soers. By taking this route, Brown's companies would draw the attention of the Germans manning the pillboxes on the other side of the Wurm, but in doing so it would divert their focus from Cox's main effort to link up with the Americans on the Ravelsberg.

Another diversionary effort in Hassenfelt's bold plan would be undertaken by the 116th Infantry forces still holding out in Würselen. Major Greer's 3rd Battalion of the 120th Infantry would assist in the
frontal attack here. Their main mission was to draw fire; if any ground was gained two companies of the 743rd Tank Battalion and a new arrival—the 99th Infantry Battalion that General Corlett had provided from Corps’ reserve—would hold it. Colonel Johnson's 117th Infantry forces southeast of Alsdorf in Kol-Kellersberg, as well as the other 120th battalions near Birk and Euchen, were to put on shows along the far eastern flank of the division in order to divert attention away from Würselen altogether; Hassenfelt also envisioned feints of company strength toward Mariadorf in his plan, to convince the Germans that the main attack on 16 October would actually be here.

Rain fell all night and was expected to continue through the day. Still, it was noted that “there would be no tolerance for halfway measures. This was it.”
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Thus, the plan went off. Lieutenant Colonel Brown sent a squad across the Wurm shortly after midnight; the men's mission was to feel out the enemy in Kohlscheid. It did not go well. They were spotted and a mortar barrage was directed at them, wounding three of the men. Others in the reconnaissance force started back after probing the enemy defenses, and they ran into a strong patrol. The men had to take refuge in a nearby house, where close fighting broke out after grenades and rifle fire escorted the German attackers through its doors and windows. The American patrol was captured; Pfc. Paul Howard, a medic, had moved the three wounded men to a safer location in an abandoned enemy bunker by this time. They waited in hope that others would rescue them when the 3rd Battalion commenced its move toward Soers.

Nearly a thousand U.S. soldiers began fording the Wurm at 0500. Right behind them, the industrious engineers of the 105th Engineer Battalion went to work and completed their first treadway bridge a half hour later, well before first light and despite being under strong and accurate mortar fire. Tanks quickly rushed across to catch up with the infantry, now well on their way to Kohlscheid. Herlong's 1st Battalion men met scattered but stubborn resistance as they double-timed it to the northern edge of the village; the leading platoon of Captain Simmons's Company A was pinned down by machine-gun fire until Sgt. John Overman courageously charged the Germans manning the gun and killed three of them with his own submachine gun, allowing the battalion columns to move again.

When the leading platoon of Lieutenant Colonel Brown's 3rd Battalion came down the road toward the southern outskirts of the village, these men had to scatter into ditches; machine-gun fire also came in at them, causing several casualties. Company I's Lt. Vincent S. Scurria was ordered to swing this platoon to the left so they could cover the route the tanks were using to come up in support. They did not get far. Scurria's men were quickly pinned down by crossfire from two other machine-gun emplacements, but not for long. Lieutenant Scurria “stood up into the machinegun fire and maneuvered his platoon into positions where they were at least able to knock out the machinegun nests,” a later account noted.
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Dawn was fast approaching, and both battalions were closing in as quickly onto the muddy streets of Kohlscheid. Back across the Wurm, Cox's 2nd Battalion had jumped off at 0600, moved quickly past the west side of Würselen and advanced nearly a thousand yards toward a slag pile closer to Teuterhof. Here the lead company was clobbered by both artillery and tank fire; the starring 119th Infantry effort to close the gap was suddenly stalled.

But, along the front of the 117th and 120th Infantries from Birk to Alsdorf, Colonel Hassenfelt's planned diversionary efforts to get Cox moving again were going off. It was noted “the Germans bit.”
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Two things made this happen. By this time, Lieutenant Stanley of the 117th Infantry's Company C had led a small combat patrol right up to the sunken rail line on the edge of Mariadorf. His men's mission had been to draw fire and, if possible, capture some prisoners. They did both. Mortar fire hit the patrol as it was moving along the edge of the thick woods between Kol-Kellersberg and the rail line, and when the men closed in on the track itself members of the squad spotted Germans moving about in the draw to their right. Stanley was the first to open fire, followed by others. Most of the Germans were killed, but six were taken prisoner. Now there was just cause on the enemy's part to believe Stanley's men were the tip of the spear in front of a general attack into Mariadorf.

At 0700 there was more reason to believe this. DIVARTY joined with the 81mm and 60mm mortar fires of 117th Infantry's line companies, smoked the ground to their front for a half hour, and then hammered away at the town buildings, shops, taverns, and brick houses along the main street in Mariadorf in what would hopefully be received as a
preparatory barrage ahead of an even larger attack. German artillery quickly confirmed their local commanders believed it was so.

To the Americans in their foxholes who were suddenly pummeled by “the thunder of these German fires,” it felt and looked like the heaviest concentration of explosions in their combined European campaign experiences to date.
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Every caliber of enemy weapon “awed the most seasoned fighters.” But the intended results were now happening; German attention was quickly focused on protecting Mariadorf “to break up the attack that appeared imminent,” and not on Lieutenant Colonel Cox's forces west of Würselen who were clinging to a hilltop halfway toward Hill 194.

And the Americans had even more tricks up their sleeves; the main diversionary attack toward Mariadorf was not even scheduled until early afternoon. Fighting raged elsewhere throughout the morning. Against Panzer Grenadier Regiment 156, supported by the 2nd Battalion of Panzer Regiment 16, Colonel Dwyer's 116th Infantry attack in North Würselen “was still a study in frustration in terms of ground gained,” but his men were nevertheless tying down the Germans here.
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Across the Wurm in Kohlscheid, both battalions of Colonel Sutherland's 119th Infantry were making progress in their fight against elements of the 246th Division. Lieutenant Colonel Herlong's 1st Battalion cleared out the northern half of the village by noon and his men were now heading southwest toward a slag pile in front of Ursfeld.

Companies K and L of Brown's 3rd Battalion met some initial resistance when these men reached the southern outskirts of Kohlscheid, but as one officer remembered, “We were soon walking through the village, checking houses, and keeping our eyes open.”
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Brown's forces were now preparing to fight their way to a little hilltop next to Soers, offering flank protection to Lieutenant Colonel Cox's 2nd Battalion forces across the Wurm on their way there.

It was now time for the main diversionary attack. At 1300 hours Capt. George H. Sibbald's Company E of the 117th Infantry was detailed to seize the railroad station in Mariadorf; two squads of Company A, under the command of Sgt. Robert Q. Fortune, would protect his left flank. Company K of the 120th was slated to be on Sibbald's right. Their mission was to be shot at during this final feint to keep the
Germans’ attention off Cox's men. The attack was preceded by friendly smoke, mortar, and artillery fire; Panzer Grenadier Regiment 156 responded almost immediately with battery and battalion concentrations in calibers from 75mm to 210mm, or larger.