Aachen: The U.S. Army's Battle for Charlemagne's City in World War II (43 page)

The gun would come in through Haaren; Corley was told to have a protective force there at 0530 the next morning, and for its commander to let the guide with the SP-155 know what he wanted to do with it.

Total casualties for Colonel Seitz's 26th Infantry on 13 October were four killed and fifteen wounded in Corley's 3rd Battalion, with fourteen still missing and probably prisoners of the Germans.
⁴⁶
Daniel's losses were fewer, but he had suffered painful numbers in killed, particularly in Company F's leadership. Much had been learned during this first day of urban combat that would minimize losses in the days ahead. Lieutenant Colonel Daniel certainly spoke for every man in his battalion when he said, “We quickly learned that in street fighting, strange to relate, one should stay out of the street.”
⁴⁷

“Nobody will ever know what this has been like up here.”

CAPT. JOSEPH DAWSON, 16TH INFANTRY

D
uring the chilly night of 13 October, the well-camouflaged Tiger tanks and Panzergrenadiers of the 3rd Panzer Division, commanded by
Generalleutnant
Walter Denkert, reached their assembly locations in the Reichswald, a big wooded area east of Würselen. This fully motorized division was to fight its way into Aachen. The 8th and 29th Panzer Grenadier Regiments were to attack abreast, first moving out to either side of the Aachen-Duren railroad tracks, next advancing past the outpost line of the 12th Infantry Division, and then capturing the hills south and southwest of Verlautenheide. Once this was accomplished, the regiment on the right was to retake Crucifix Hill and the Ravelsberg. After overrunning Verlautenheide, the important ridge outside of the village, Quinx, and the northern part of Eilendorf, the left regiment was to push all the way down into Rothe Erde with the objective of establishing a line from the slaughterhouse in the northeast section of Aachen at Julicherstrasse to the southern edge of Haaren.

The 3rd Panzer Division, known to the Germans as the “Bear Division,” had been activated near Berlin back in late 1935. Since that time it had participated in the Polish campaign of 1939 before distinguishing itself in France during the Battle of Dunkirk. In June of 1942 the division was part of the Russian offensive and under the command of future
Generalfeldmarschall
Walter Model; it took part in the fighting around Kiev
and the later drive on Moscow before suffering heavy losses during the Kharkov battles in the fall of 1943. After bitter fighting around Cherkassy and Uman at the start of the winter, the division was surrounded at Kirovograd in early January, but escaped capture and managed to retreat over the frozen wintry roadways of Ukraine and east Poland.

Generalleutnant
Denkert, a native of the seaside city of Kiel on the Baltic coast of Germany and a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, had been in the Führer Reserve before taking command of the division in June of 1944. Its proud Prussian roots still influenced the Bears; despite being understrength at this time—meaning between seven thousand and nine thousand men according to 1st Division Intelligence estimates—“morale of the troops was elevated.”
¹
In addition to his fifteen to twenty Tiger tanks, Denkert now had elements of the 506th
Panzerjäger
Detachment (antitank), with about fifteen to twenty more vehicles, for the upcoming fight. The
Volksartillerie
Corps and a
Volkswerfer
Brigade, located in the middle sector of 7th Army, would provide additional support; the offensive would also be backed up by the artillery units of the 12th Infantry Division.

The attack was first slated for early morning on 15 October, when the clear and cool weather of the fourteenth would give way to forecasted rain under cloudy skies, thereby preventing American fighter groups from disturbing the planned assault.
²
Reconnoitering and familiarization with the terrain had been completed. With sloping grassland leading up toward Verlautenheide, early morning fog and smoke cover would assist the German tanks and their mounted Panzergrenadiers in reaching the village undetected; the heavily canopied edge of a forest to the east would initially provide cover and an assembly area for these efforts. The
Panzerjäger
Detachment would be committed with the regiment on the right, where American tanks were certain to challenge any German vehicular movement along the main road into Aachen.

But all did not go according to plan, at least from the perspective of
General der Infanterie
Köchling. He learned that he would not oversee the attack, an “astonishing interference with the command of LXXXI Corps,” according to one account.
³
Instead, direction of the 3rd Panzer Division would be by 7th Army from its command post well to the rear in Inden. No “official explanation” was offered at the time, but one cannot help but wonder whether
Generalfeldmarschall
Model's former command of the
division played some role in this decision. Or, was it simply Model's impatience with the deteriorating situation around Aachen and wavering confidence in the local commanders? Regardless, Model was now wielding the big stick; he refused to wait another day for the attack and insisted it be conducted later on 14 October when coming darkness in his estimation would provide adequate cover. Every one of his subordinate commanders argued against this, including Denkert, but Model of course prevailed. Accordingly, the strike was moved up to 1830 that evening.

Anticipating the attack but obviously unaware of its new timing, the 18th Infantry's Colonel Smith had ordered adjustments along the regiment's entire front earlier that morning.
⁴
Mine fields were planned and laid, barbed wire was strewn and installed, and many positions were sandbagged. Captain Russell's Company K was moved up from Haaren to relieve Captain Miller's Company B on the Ravelsberg; Miller's soldiers dug foxholes for the new arrivals on the hill's reverse slope before pulling back to the cellars in Haaren. Captain Folk's Company L was put on alert and told to anticipate moving up to Ravelsberg Hill at the first sign of trouble. A platoon from Capt. Charles A. Penick's Cannon Company was sent up; his self-propelled vehicles mounted 105mm short-barreled howitzers that had 7,000-yard range and would weigh in with extra firepower for the defense.

Comparative quiet then passed from morning into midafternoon on the common front of the soon-to-be-attacking Germans and the defense-fortifying Americans along the important northern jaw positions outside of Aachen.

In the city itself, both battalions of Colonel Seitz's 26th Infantry went on the attack shortly after 0600 on 14 October. Lieutenant Colonel Daniel first ordered Company G to push down Kaiser Allee to bring these men abreast of his other two rifle companies on Victoriastrasse; this consumed a good part of the morning.
⁵
Company F, now commanded by Lt. Chestnut W. Webb, a Gaylesville, Alabama, native and son of a state senator, had his 1st Platoon still fighting its way out of the cemetery. A two-story pillbox guarded its approaches, and it had to be taken before the company could join the drive westward into the core of the city. Webb, a veteran of North Africa, Sicily, and Normandy, wasted little time before electing to commit all three of his platoons for this effort.
Using rocket guns and rifle grenades against both level apertures, they silenced the larger enemy weapons poking out of the fortification. Both sides hurled hand grenades back and forth as Webb's 2nd Platoon charged the massive pillbox; German machine gunners and others bearing deadly Sturmgewehr machine pistols laid down heavy fire, but this failed to stop the Americans and the pillbox was theirs before noon. But when Webb's 1st Platoon tried to exit the cemetery by first jumping over its high walls, the exposed soldiers took numerous casualties from enemy rifle fire and even
Panzerfausts
; the men who landed safely returned fire and destroyed two of the German guns. By this time Captain Chaplin's Company L had made limited contact with one of Company F's squads, but Webb had to leave a small force behind to assure a firmer linkup before lining the rest of his men up with the other 2nd Battalion companies for the day's main effort westward.

At 1230 hours, Daniel finally ordered all three companies to begin this push from Victoria; Captain Smoot's Company E immediately started working over the buildings off Adalbertstein Weg, with remarkable success. As Daniel pointed out:

We were attacking now to the west and since our artillery was placed south of town it was now firing parallel to our front. This permitted the artillery to fire very close to us without danger from short rounds. We found that shells could be dropped into the same block in which we were working. With delayed fuse, the shells would penetrate one or more floors before exploding and the Germans would simply not stay in the buildings with that coming in; we could, therefore, mow them down as they fled from the building.
⁶

But Daniel's men also discovered that not everyone evacuating buildings could be cut down. As the afternoon wore on, Lieutenant Walker's Company G had the battalion's first experience with air raid shelter occupants in Aachen; the drab structure was three stories high and so strongly built that direct fire by his accompanying tank destroyers produced just slight damage to its walls. Machine-gun fire only forced most of the defenders back inside. Walker decided to head for one of its entrances with an interpreter. He demanded surrender; German officers and the
police had the entrance blocked. When they refused, the American company commander called for a flamethrower. The interpreter explained what would happen if they did not give up, but again they refused. With this, Walker reached into his pocket for a box of matches, ignited the flamethrower, and squirted a jet of burning gas at the door. When the flame had burnt out, this time another German officer emerged from inside the shelter, and attempted to negotiate terms through the interpreter before surrendering. Walker told the interpreter to tell this German that there would be no negotiation of terms whatsoever; either surrender at once or be burned. Some seventy-five enemy soldiers and about three thousand civilians eventually emerged.

“The doors opened and out came the drabbest, filthiest inhabitants of the underworld I had ever seen,” wrote war correspondent George Mucha. “People came stumbling out into the light, dazed, then catching a breath of fresh air, started to jabber, push, scream and curse. ‘We have been praying every day for you to come,’ said a woman with a pale, thin face. ‘You can't imagine what we have had to suffer from them.’”
⁷
“All had been living like animals for several weeks,” an American officer later noted. “The ventilation and lighting facilities were inadequate. If one of us entered without a torch, he found himself suffocating in the stench-filled corridors.”
⁸

Farther to the north, Captain Botts's Company I and Corwell's Company K were attacking Farwick Park. Enemy resistance at first proved to be strong around the austerely ornamented St. Elizabeth's Church, but both companies eventually attacked jointly and overran the Germans. One of Botts's platoons even started climbing up the forward slope toward the Hotel Quellenhof but eventually ended up on another hillside along Robensstrasse. Captain Chaplin's Company L, after finding the newly arrived SP 155 gun so effective that it literally blew holes through the houses back along Perliserkerstrasse, was still having trouble making contact with Lieutenant Webb's Company F squads outside of the cemetery. “This situation was reported to regiment,” Lieutenant Colonel Daniel noted. “We were then told to hold where we were [and] be ready to defend to the east in case a breakthrough was made by the Germans.”
⁹

Detachments of SS Battalion Rink had again been prevented from reaching Aachen that day, but with American forces now within mere
spitting distance of his command post in the Hotel Quellenhof,
Oberst
Wilck had been appealing over and again to LXXXI Corps for more reinforcements. The Army official historian even noted that Wilck had at one point radioed
General der Infanterie
Köchling “in what was apparently a gross exaggeration” and told him “American tanks had enveloped his command post.”
¹⁰
But in light of Wilck's exhortations, Battalion Rink was actually strengthened with elements of Fortress Assault Gun Company 106, Assault Gun Brigade 341, as well as the 2nd (Antitank) Company of Artillery Regiment 246. Only six assault guns and two howitzers arrived in Aachen that night; it was later learned that Wilck and his staff abandoned the Quellenhof. It would be another day before the rest of Battalion Rink finally battled its way through Teuterhof and into Aachen.

On the hills outside of Aachen, the highly anticipated debut of the 3rd Panzer Division produced mixed results at best on 14 October; a German officer's account recorded the main events this way:

Although surprised in the beginning, with striking rapidity the Americans concentrated their artillery fire on the attacking forces as soon as they were located. Murderous fire met the spearhead approaching Verlautenheide and Quinx. After the first local counterattack by tanks from Quinx was reported, it became evident that both surprise and the attack had failed.
¹¹

However, around 2200 hours that night a strong enemy patrol infiltrated between Captain Dawson's Company G of the 16th Infantry on the ridge outside of Eilendorf and Lieutenant Colonel Williamson's Company G positions in front of Verlautenheide.
¹²
After first cutting the communication wires to two of Dawson's platoons, about forty Germans came in through his left flank and headed for a house being used as shelter for his weapons men. It was soon surrounded and one American guarding the home was killed and another wounded. Then a German ran up with a pole charge and placed it into a doorway; even though the structure's walls were 2 feet thick, the charge still blew half the house down. Whooping enemy soldiers entered what was left of the house, striking matches so they could see their way around. Outside, two machine guns were set up, one next to a wall that had not crumbled in the earlier blast and the other about 50 yards behind it.

All the men in the weapons platoon were in the cellar by this time, but its shaken commander still had a wire to Dawson's command post; the company commander immediately ordered his boys to go up and fight, using their carbines and pistols. So the men raced upstairs and managed to force more than half of the German intruders out of the three rooms in which they had holed up, killing many in the process. Quick thinking by Dawson had also resulted in three friendly squads outside of the house attacking at the same time; after yells were made for their own men not to shoot, these soldiers rushed in, drove the rest of the Germans away, and destroyed their machine-gun emplacements.