Aachen: The U.S. Army's Battle for Charlemagne's City in World War II (10 page)

Colonel Gans was trying to line up his force. He should have had two battalions, less one company, but he could only find four companies. Mills told him of the depleted Company F which he had held in his area and not sent up the night before because Lovelady had not seemed to need them. Mills then ordered the Company F commander to alert his men, and ordered him to see Colonel Gans. Gans should have had F, H and I Companies of the 36th Armored Infantry (formerly with Mills), and D and E Companies (formerly with Lovelady). At 0100 Colonel Gans had been called back to headquarters to receive his orders.
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The subsequent attack jumped off at 0832 hours and by 0920 Major Dunn's 3rd Battalion reported that his companies had reached the first phase line just short of a field before a wooded area west of Weissenberg.
Gans ordered Dunn to halt here and wait for Maj. A. L. Robinette's 2nd Battalion, which was running into difficulties at the time because of an enemy self-propelled gun to his front. When Robinette reported that his battalion was still pinned down at 1000 hours, Gans ordered Dunn to cross the field into the woods, despite Dunn's warning that “such an action would be excessively dangerous, but that he would try it.”
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Within minutes, another 88mm self-propelled gun in the woods opened, holding this force down with direct fire.

At 1052, Captain Amborst's Company D reported that the enemy was maneuvering to its right flank, but that Captain Emerson's Company E was working its way around these forces toward a large factory closer to Diepenlinchen. Later, the company reported that its four supporting tanks could not be used for this attack because of the terrain and enemy fire. Captain Getter's Company H reported two hours later that his 3rd Platoon, commanded by Lt. M. E. Hulstedt, was across the field in a corner of the Weissenberg woods, where they were expected to be, but the enemy counterattacked and these men were forced to withdraw. “The company had been called back at each phase line as we advanced,” remembered the company Executive Officer, Lt. H. M. Bundrick. “The whole area was subjected to enemy shelling. The men were told to dig in every time we stopped.”
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At this point Lieutenant Colonel Lovelady suggested to Gans that the supporting tanks move up to help Amborst's Company D and Emerson's Company E, which by this time had actually worked its way much closer to Diepenlinchen.

Colonel Gans responded by calling for help from the artillery, and after rounds were laid in, Emerson's men were ordered to continue to the right of the factory area. Captain Amborst's Company D had been forced back into the village, where his men were holding out in eight houses with German outposts no farther than 50 yards away. Shortly afterward, a very long day for the infantry ended when the situation stabilized for the night.

Task Force Lovelady fared no better that day. His tanks started moving northeastward toward Diepenlinchen, but at 1600 hours the task force was hit heavily by German tanks, artillery, antitank guns, mortars, and small-arms fire. Forced back about a mile, the task force leaguered
for the night in defensive positions on the high ground back at Burgholz. Lieutenant Silva, the leader of the 3rd Platoon of Company B, 703rd TD Battalion attached to Task Force Lovelady that day, remembered:

At 1460 the TD section was taken into Mausbach where [we] were having a hard fight. Several of our medium tanks had been knocked out, and the TD's were ordered to set up road blocks to protect our position. One was set up at a crossroad, and another near the church in the center of town. There was considerable small arms fire, but the main difficulty was the deadly shell fire coming from the direction of Diepenlinchen. I climbed the church spire trying to spot this fire, but I could not definitely locate it.

Between 1630 and 1700, amid heavy tank and infantry fighting on the northeastern outskirts of town, my tank destroyers were hit, and both the gunner and the assistant gunner in one of them were killed—even though the vehicle did not burn. An 88mm enemy tank shell instead knocked it out. By this time six of the task force's medium tanks had also been knocked out.
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Silva was ordered to hold his destroyers in town until Task Force Lovelady's vehicles had cleared out. This he did, and what remained of his TD platoon was indeed the last to leave.

The arrival through Atsch of the 3rd Battalion of
Oberst
Engel's 27th Infantry Regiment of the 12th Infantry Division was the principal cause for the setbacks experienced by American forces on 16 September. By attacking via Atsch, these forces had reached the Schill Line on both sides of Munsterbusch before moving to the southern part of Stolberg where they linked up with the depleted elements of the 9th Panzer Division. Although deployed later in the day, three battalions of 12th Infantry Division artillery were nevertheless emplaced on a line from Verlautenheide to Stolberg. Reflecting on this day, Engel later remembered its significance for his division:

The first day of battle for the division on the Western Front had this result: The line Verlautenheide-Munsterbusch-Stolberg was
firmly in the hands of the division, of the 27th Infantry Regiment. In the right sector, the gap could be considered closed. Contact was made with the right neighbor, the 116th Panzer Division, between Eilendorf and Verlautenheide, whereby the threat of an envelopment of Aachen was removed. On this day, [I] realized that the Americans had not noticed the bringing up of a fresh division. Although the targets of the day's attacks were not reached, the first day of battle could be considered a success.

In the meantime, the bulk of the division had been unloaded without any interference in the area of Julich-Duren-Elsdorf. The foggy, overcast weather continued; the absence of any air activity here made the accelerated conveyance of the artillery of the 48th and 89th Grenadier Regiments to the menaced front possible.
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With Engel's division now engaged, Seventh Army made several adjustments during the day. His 12th Infantry Division was incorporated into and subordinated to LXXXI Corps. The 353rd Infantry Division was also ordered detached to LXXIV Corps. From Army, Schack received orders to pull out the 116th Panzer Division after the 12th Infantry Division went into action, and to keep its remaining strength in Corps reserve in the vicinity of Eschweiler. These moves were delayed for two reasons. First, the 9th Panzer Division was pulled out and
Oberst
Mueller, despite leading a rigorous defense that day, was finally relieved of his command. “I was transferred to the Fuehrer [
sic
] Reserve,” remembered Mueller, “because I had not fulfilled expectations to stop the enemy at the Westwall in spite of all [our] inadequacies, and because of the fact I had predicted [this] daily several times in my blunt reports of the situation.”
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When what was left of Mahlmann's 353rd Division was finally detached to LXXIV Corps on 18 September, he evinced similar bitterness. “Thus an exhausted, improvised unit, insufficiently fed, armed and equipped, awaited the attack of a well-fed American Army, far superior as regards men and materiel.”
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At 2000 hours on 16 September, LXXXI Corps issued a new set of orders for the continuing defense of the Schill Line. Counting on the Americans to remain on the offensive by massing their forces the next day,
Oberst
Engel's 12th Infantry Division was tasked with defending the positions it had gained and reclaiming the Schill Line in its zone. The
weakened 116th Panzer Division, which its historian reported had “a mobility factor of 40 percent, and its battle value the incomprehensibly high level of ‘II,’”
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was to now hold its present main battle line on the right wing of the 12th Infantry Division, and link up with the 1st Battalion of the 27th Regiment deployed near Verlautenheide. Here a mobile reserve was to be established to counterattack the expected American offensive on 17 September.

Summarizing the overall effect of the German accomplishments made on 16 September with the arrival of the 12th Infantry Division and cautiously optimistic about his new orders that night, LXXXI Corps’ Schack noted, “The employment of these fresh troops greatly lifted the morale of the population, the battle-weary units, and closed a dangerous gap in the southern Corps’ sector.”
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One order of the day had not been achieved. The Germans had failed to reclaim the Schill Line. Major General Collins's VII Corps also adjusted its plans. “Eschweiler had been the objective for several days,” Colonel Boudinot recalled at the time. “On 16 September this dropped from view, and [we] were ordered to clean up the southeast side of Stolberg. The town could now not be bypassed as originally planned because it was too strongly held by the enemy.”
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“The opposition in the Stolberg area disrupted all of the plans.”

BRIGADIER GENERAL HICKEY COMMANDING, CCA

J
ust after midnight on 17 September an enemy patrol of nine men rushed Captain Dawson's Company G position on the ridgeline outside of Verlautenheide. Quick reaction by his men resulted in seven killed before the rest escaped and the night quieted down. Then just after 0530 vicious mortar and artillery fire began anew, covering both Dawson's forces and Company E, whose men were across a gap about 100 yards away in a heavily wooded area. “It was estimated that 4,000 mortars and another 4,000 artillery shells landed in the companies’ areas,” reports stated at the time. “The barrage lasted until about 0600 hours.”
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Immediately after this tremendous enemy volley lifted, two companies of about 150 men each from the 1st Battalion of the 27th Infantry Regiment launched a frontal attack with their bayonets fixed. Company G was very vulnerable, as both Dawson's immediate left front and his deeper left flank were open at that moment. But luck was with his men. The heaviest attacks first came against the 1st Platoon, located on the company's right flank, and then into the center platoon before the 3rd Platoon caught the overflow. During the ensuing fight, one 1st Platoon squad ran completely out of ammunition and had to withdraw. Before 1st Infantry Division artillery, 4.2-inch chemical mortars, as well as support from Captain Irvine's heavy weapons company helped in stopping the attack, the Germans had closed to within the length of a football field.

Strategically located artillery observation points had given the Germans a significant advantage during this early morning attack. “Their fire was made particularly accurate by excellent observation,” an account of the action noted. “From their positions on one hill, which became famous as Crucifix Hill—because of a crucifix which surmounted it—they looked down on the regiment. They observed every move and they poured constant heavy fire on the men below. To move was to invite fire.”
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A third assault came at about noon, in approximately the same strength as the first attack, following another scathing artillery strike. “They were well disciplined troops and kept coming despite their losses,” remembered Captain Dawson. “They got almost as close as they had in the morning and were stopped only after they became completely disorganized. Artillery and mortar fire, plus small arms fire broke up the attack at about 1400.”
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After this, some of the enemy forces remained in foxholes on Dawson's right flank before one of his squads attacked in short rushes, repeatedly throwing hand grenades into the enemy positions; the few remaining Germans in these foxholes were all killed.

Then, at 1800 yet another attack was made on Company G in the same strength and in the same manner as the first two. The attack developed from the small peacetime working suburb of Haaren after yet another smashing artillery volley was called down from Crucifix Hill, known to the Germans as the Haarener Steinkreuz. This time twelve enemy combatants actually reached Dawson's lines before being killed. “Others could be heard yelling to attack, but were kept from doing so by the intense rifle and machinegun fire of the company and from the left flank of Company E,” the after-action report noted. “One prisoner of war said they had never run up against such devastating small arms fire.”
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During this action Dawson's 1st Platoon expended an average of six bandoleers of M-1 ammunition per man. At about 2000 hours the enemy forces finally retired after evacuating their wounded and dead, some of whom were officers. The next morning when Lieutenant Colonel Hicks counted the casualties he traded in stopping the day-long attack, two of Dawson's enlisted men had been killed and three Company G officers and fourteen additional enlisted men had been seriously wounded, while fourteen others in Company E had suffered lighter wounds.

At 0515 hours on this same morning of 17 September, other elements of the 27th Infantry Regiment began to fire on Lieutenant
Colonel Orr's 1st Battalion of the 36th Armored Infantry near the road junction at Am Geisberg. The intensity of this fire increased until 0530 and then it became clear that the full attack was imminent. Orr immediately called for defensive fire from his supporting artillery, and three concentrations were laid into the wooded area in which the German forces were assembled. It looked grim. The lines between Orr's Company B and the enemy he was facing were little more than 50 yards apart.

“They came in close waves,” Orr recalled. “Even the more hardened of [our] machine gunners became literally sick at the way they had to mow the line of men down.”
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By 0600 the attack was over, but not before a section of tanks had swung around into the gap between the two companies and stopped the enemy advance just short of Orr's command post. When patrols pushed into the woods to determine what remained of the attacking German forces, reports came back indicating that tree bursts from the artillery concentrations had killed a large number of them.

Orr had been ordered the previous night to continue his advance in the direction of Hamm, a center of rail marshalling yards, so his forces finally set out to accomplish this at 0700. But within two hours, they discovered a large number of German infantry troops on Company A's right flank. Small-arms and machine-gun fire pinned these men down; two tanks were also hit. It appeared the Germans were grouping up for another attack. “It was decided that they [Orr's infantry] would jump off again at 1200 following a 15 minute preparation by our artillery,” the 67th Groupment Armored Field Artillery after-action report noted. “On very short notice we were able to obtain a 240mm battalion, an 8-inch battalion, an M12 battalion and five 105mm battalions for this preparation. The preparation began with a TOT at 1205.”
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With his north flank filled with enemy, Orr first sent a patrol through a grove of trees toward Hamm after the artillery ceased at 1220. These men were stopped when fire broke out from a pillbox just outside of a factory building, a spot apparently not hit by the artillery. German soldiers also began firing from houses displaying white flags of surrender. Another of Orr's companies tried to make its way along the road from Munsterbusch into Hamm, but structures not marked on their maps proved to again be camouflaged pillboxes loaded with Germans. Under the circumstances, there was no choice but to pull back. The night brought even more evidence that the German forces were growing. “Enemy vehicular traffic moved to the northwest, towards Atsch,” Orr recalled. “Tracked
vehicles also were heard moving into Schneidmuhle. Patrols sent out into the woods also discovered a new line of enemy about two hundred yards farther northward.”
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In Munsterbusch, remaining elements of the 485th Home Guard, the 12th Engineer Battalion, the 452nd and 473rd Reserve Battalions, the 6th Lancschutz (Home Guard) Regiment, the 8th
Luftwaffe
Battalion, the 831st Nebel Com—part of the 7th
Flak
Division—as well as the 2105 Panzer Battalion of the 104th Panzer Brigade—all units of the 9th Panzer Division and the 1031st Infantry Regiment—were being joined by the 3rd Battalion of
Oberst
Engel's 27th Infantry Regiment.
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Southeast of Stolberg, Task Force Mills also experienced difficulty on 17 September. Colonel Boudinot had ordered Mills to again attack westward by way of Diepenlinchen and Weissenberg, optimistically expecting that his task force could then reach Birkengang, a hamlet on the north edge of Stolberg. From here Mills was to then pivot and secure what would become known as the Donnerberg fortress—Hill 287—located just outside of Stolberg to the northeast. According to Boudinot's plan, Mills would then be able to resume attacking along his original line of advance and link up with CCA.
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With Company F tanks in the lead, Task Force Mills pushed northward after uncoiling, and by 0800 most of the column had penetrated the woods southwest of Diepenlinchen. Across the valley approximately 800 yards away, they observed enemy forces digging in on a ridge. The company called for artillery, and after it came down the forty infantrymen left in Company F dismounted their half-tracks and attacked. As they worked their way up the slope fronting the enemy position in a skirmish line, heavy small-arms fire came in from a different direction—the woods to their left. The company commander reported that he could not take his objective without risking heavy losses, so he was ordered to partially pull back while another artillery concentration was called for.

Meanwhile, an enemy Mark VI tank made an unexpected appearance; it had come up through a draw behind another ridge to the northeast. The Americans answered by moving a 76mm SP gun into a nearby wooded area; many doubted it could do the job and they were right. After the gun got off four rounds, three of which merely bounced off the thickly plated Tiger, the German tankers simply turned their turret
toward the gun and opened up, putting two rounds right through the front slope plate of the 76mm's chassis, killing one man and wounding two others. The Mark VI then remained in its taunting position; no American tanks were able to challenge it because it would just back off.

A frustrated Mills promptly requested artillery fire on the tank, but all through the day strikes somehow missed this ghostly Mark VI, even when it harassed the Americans and stuck its nose over the brow of the hill into full view. On the ridge where the Germans had taken a stance against the Company F infantry, however, renewed artillery strikes had proven more successful. As soon as this fire lifted, these American soldiers got on the ridge and a platoon of tanks infiltrated at maximum speed up to a defiladed position behind them. But when a section of medium tanks commanded by Lt. John H. Raymond came up in support, a
Panzerfaust
opened fire from a stand of trees to the left and knocked out his lead tank. Mills reluctantly called off the attack, leaving everyone clawing to their positions on the ridge.
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Setbacks also struck Task Force Lovelady on that cloudy and rainy 17 September. Major Robinette's 2nd Battalion mission was to attack across a ridgeline to the west from the woods they had occupied the previous day, and then move northwest to the Donnerberg fortress, Hill 287.
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A German move, undetected, was destined to cause big problems. During the morning two battalions of the newly arrived 48th Grenadier Regiment attacked down separate roads from Gressenich toward Mausbach. A neighboring American unit first broke up the attack, but the enemy advance nevertheless continued in short rushes with their two battalions still abreast. “Apparently the battalion west of the road either reformed and renewed the attack, or was able to continue its advance unmolested. By noontime the Germans were just east of Weissenberg.”

Soon afterward they collided with Captain Emerson's Company E, which was near the eastern side of the factory area in Diepenlinchen. They came at the company from both sides and, as one witness explained, “scooped it up. [I] was able to count at least 30 men lined up to march back towards Werth.”
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The Germans had reached nearby Werth earlier in the day and it was now a marshaling area and prisoner-of-war pen.

Another German unit also hit Captain Amborst's Company D very hard that day. Newly arrived forces from the 89th Grenadier Regiment
got well around the factory buildings toward the crossroads in the southern part of Diepenlinchen. A large number of soldiers from both companies were captured; Company E had just fourteen active men left after the melee ended; Amborst's Company D had just thirty-two effectives.
¹³
Those not captured pulled back nearer to the houses southwest of town. Colonel Gans—who had gone forward to help direct the withdrawal of Company E—was captured. Captain Emerson was also missing and presumed taken prisoner.

Amborst's casualties were particularly dreadful. Heavy enemy concentrations of fire had wounded four of his Company D men and killed another in the early going, and then Captain Amborst lost six more killed and another eight wounded before midmorning. He did his best to hold his men together until approximately 1300, but then “he noticed a bush just behind [our] position which the enemy machinegun fire had clipped squarely across at waist-high level, so intense was this fire. Likewise, they laid in lots of artillery.”
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The dispersion of the shelling was all to the rear and since the shells hit just behind the men lying on the small ridge, the fragments went behind them and they suffered fewer casualties. Nevertheless, these men were so close to the spot where the shells were falling that geysers of dirt were sprayed over them. A few others in the company had crossed the ridge before the enemy opened up. They were wounded, and as a medic crossed to help them he also became a casualty.

I gave the leader of the 2nd Platoon, Technical Sergeant Hisaw, permission to help out the wounded; he crawled to help them and enemy shrapnel hit him in the leg. A messenger, meanwhile, who was sent back to contact higher headquarters did not return. I then decided to pull the men back, but just as I organized the withdrawal an unusually heavy barrage of 88mm fire hit the area. The fire came in barrages about eight minutes between and the men were lining up to begin the withdrawal during the intervals.

Right after this the situation became even more critical. Hisaw, despite his wounds, had helped the other wounded to withdraw, but
many of the men were starting to falter under the strain. At about this time, the Germans moved close enough to lob hand grenades on these soldiers. But better luck was to prevail. Unexpectedly, remnants from one of the platoons that had been out of contact with Amborst for the past hour gathered to the right rear and brought rifle fire into the enemy positions. “Without this, the Germans would have wiped us out,” Amborst recalled. “A final difficulty then presented itself when the enemy got enfilade fire with a machinegun on the men lying on the ridge. A few more men broke completely under the strain, but the able men helped the wounded. We withdrew to the line of houses by 1700 where we took a defensive position in the same area we had occupied the night before.”
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