Aachen: The U.S. Army's Battle for Charlemagne's City in World War II (48 page)

General Hobbs could only hope now that closing the gap was more likely because his forces in and around Würselen and Bardenberg had also held their own during the morning. Early reports from Colonel Sutherland had “about 100 enemy infantry spotted grouping for an attack across the bridge near Kohlscheid.”
³²
These forces were likely the newly arrived elements of Battalion Rink that had been sent to the Würselen area to relieve Grenadier Regiment 404; they were finally being freed up to rejoin the 246th Division and the fight to retake the Ravelsberg. Other forces of Panzer Grenadier Regiment 60 had already seized a group of bunkers 800 meters west of the Gouley mine. But, as the 116th Panzer Division's historian later wrote, “By 1020 hours the attacks came to a standstill because enemy artillery fire and attacks by fighter bombers became too intense.”
³³

“Our artillery broke it up,” a 119th Infantry account agreed. “From Bardenberg south toward North Würselen, the flank was held for periods by elements of Company D and even by the kitchen train of the 1st Battalion.”
³⁴
In the area being defended in Bardenberg by Captain Shaw's Company I of the 120th Infantry, one gallant action by Staff Sgt. Jack J. Pendleton stood out. A German machine gunner had placed his weapon at an intersection that allowed him to control any movement through the streets toward his position; there was no cover or concealment to be found for Sergeant Pendleton's squad. Prior attempts to get at the gun had failed; artillery could not be called for because his men and the Germans were too close. Pendleton decided the only way to knock the gun out was to lead his men in doing it. They advanced over 100 yards toward the gun while under withering fire; he was seriously wounded in the leg as he got closer to the enemy position. Here Sergeant Pendleton decided to go it alone and signaled for his men to stay back. He moved slowly and painfully, with just grenades in his hands. As was noted later, “With no hope of surviving the veritable hail of machinegun fire which he deliberately drew onto himself, he succeeded in advancing to within ten yards of the enemy position.”
³⁵

Sergeant Pendleton was killed by a burst of the enemy gun moments later, but in doing so he had diverted the attention of the gunners solely onto himself; his sacrifice enabled his squad with the help of another to advance on the machine-gun nest and destroy it. Another of Captain Shaw's platoons neutralized a second gun emplacement providing covering fire for the first, permitting the company to continue its advance through Bardenberg. For his intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty, at the cost of his life, Staff Sergeant Pendleton was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.

Two more threats had shown up elsewhere around Bardenberg after 1100 hours, but artillery was able to thwart the attackers in these locations. By noon, reports indicated “every German thrust had been contained. The infantrymen were quick to transfer much of the credit to their supporting artillery and to fourteen squadrons of fighter bombers that droned about the front all day like reckless but disciplined wasps.”
³⁶
In the woods outside of Bardenberg, additional credit was given to the 30th Division Reconnaissance Troop and the 119th Infantry Regimental I&R Platoon for keeping enemy patrols out of the village. Even units stationed in the rear were praised. The division's Signal Company improvised a way to replace otherwise unobtainable special batteries for the bazookas; by “working out an ingenious way of mounting ordinary flashlight batteries, still plentiful, on a bazooka, almost all of the rocket launchers in the division—507 in all—were thus modified and kept in service.”
³⁷

But no appreciable ground had been gained; on 12 October the Germans’ primary goal was to defend the “big road,” Highway 57, which led into Aachen through Würselen. In this they had succeeded; they were preventing the linkup. “We were pecked at in some places, strong at others,” Hobbs reported to General Corlett about the morning's actions.
³⁸
At midafternoon, the Germans still “were nibbling and pushing, but no general attack” was the report General Hobbs gave then. “Everything is under control; the men have their tails over the dashboard.” But totally aware now of the German buildup of their defenses, with more forces to come, Corlett offered his own assessment. “If the 116th Panzer Division and Adolf Hitler, the I SS Panzers, are in there, this is one of the decisive battles of the war.” General Corlett later reported to his Army commander, General Hodges, about the situation, and when he got back to the 30th Infantry Division commander after this a highly pressured Corlett told
him that despite the new German opposition, “We have to close the gap some way.”

Their options were limited. Corlett first suggested crossing back over the Wurm again, then driving south along the river through Pley; uncertainty about the 116th Panzer Division's intentions nullified this plan. There were even suggestions that troops of the 1st Infantry might attack northward to make the junction, but General Hodges ruled this out when he made it clear that the 30th Division owned the plan to make the linkup. One thing was repeated over and over: General Hobbs wanted more troops. Later he would say, “You should not have to drive men as they were being driven; men should be led, not driven.”
³⁹
He was clearly being supportive of his division. Finally they hatched a plan, with General Corlett's approval. Hobbs would get more troops. Two battalions of the 116th Infantry Regiment, under the command of Col. Philip R. Dwyer, would move into North Würselen from their positions west of the Wurm where they had been containing pillboxes near Kerkade; Lt. Col. Hugh W. Colton's 1104 Engineer Group would take over here. To add armored strength to the mission, three companies of the “Iron Knights,” the 3rd Battalion of the 66th Armored Regiment under Lt. Col Hugh R. O'Farrell, would also be attached to the 116th Infantry.

The attack would continue from North Würselen, even after other options were offered. General Corlett thought a “wide end run southeast from the vicinity of Alsdorf” might work
⁴⁰
; Hobbs and his regimental commanders “demurred, reluctant to abandon good defensive positions on the east and southeast lest the indicated German strength materialize.” Perhaps this decision was influenced by a prisoner taken later in the day by the 117th Infantry who stated during his interrogation that “four panzer divisions were on the way to Mariadorf to engage in what he termed ‘the Battle of the West Wall.’”
⁴¹
There were other reasons to believe the Germans were building up forces in the area. At 1830, enemy planes were spotted in the skies overhead; they were marking their front lines with yellow star clusters. Later, green flares were fired into the air by German troops. At 2215 Company F reported “armor was moving around in Mariadorf.”
⁴²
A little over a half hour later the 3rd Battalion S-3 reported the same thing. It had been happening for the past two hours. Then, at the stroke of midnight, Captain Culp's Company K reported that his men “could see light flashing in the vicinity of Bettendorf.”
⁴³

The 116th Panzer Division orders for 13 October included continuation of the attack along the line from Euchen to Birk and offensives “from the vicinity west of Würselen toward Bardenberg.”
⁴⁴
At 2240 hours, while tanks were roaming around Mariadorf, Battalion Rink was informed that it would be relieved by
Hauptmann
Hans Appel's Armored Engineer Battalion 675. Armored Reconnaissance Battalion 116 would be positioned between Würselen and Teuterhof and link up with the 246th Division in order to prevent entry into Aachen; the only passable way into the city, other than on Highway 57, ran from the center of Würselen westward to Teuterhof, then after crossing the Wurm it curved southward toward Kolscheid and Soers before stretching down into Aachen; this route also had to be sealed off. Panzer Grenadier Regiment 156 would move to the north edge of Würselen. Like Roman soldiers before them, for both the Germans and the Americans everything would now depend on their success or failure fighting on a narrow front in the buildings and streets of Würselen.

Friday the 13th began with American intermediaries at the Robert Ley settlement west of Würselen demanding the surrender of a newly arrived company of
Hauptmann
Appel's Armored Engineering Battalion 675; the Germans declined. According to Combat Group Rink battle reports, the demand had come about because “the enemy had become aware of [its] relief.”
⁴⁵
But the relief had not happened because of some confusion with the orders Rink received and the probability that the Germans got wind of General Hobbs's plans to bring reinforcements into the area. Following the refusal to surrender, unidentified American units right after 0800 “broke into the right and left of the armored engineer battalion position with tanks and infantry and dispersed it, developing a dangerous threat to the flank of the 2d Battalion, Panzer Grenadier Regiment 60, which was adjacent to the left.”
⁴⁶

Captain McBride's Company B of the 119th Infantry was in all probability the unidentified American unit; his men and their accompanying tanks had been trying to clear this area and had come upon “some five tanks to their left and three to their right front” that morning.
⁴⁷
The always aggressive McBride had gone forward to a building just 75 yards short of the first tank he saw and directed artillery fire on it; the tank was knocked out. After calling in more adjustments, he scored two additional
hits on a second.
Hauptmann
Appel “found a hero's death” when he personally “threw himself toward the enemy breach.” Paymaster Richard Wolff-Boenisch wrote in his diary later that day:

It was a black day for the engineer battalion. Oberleutnant Heinrich Dieckmann, Leutnant Matthias Leufen, and Leutnant Gunther Muller wounded; our commander Hauptmann Appel killed. This is how they leave us, one by one. I felt really bad about the commander; I believe there was no man more decent, unselfish and humble than he.
⁴⁸

The drumbeat of artillery fire nullified further offensive operations for both sides as the morning wore on. Attacks “were to no avail,” wrote the Army official historian. “Because the attack was on such a narrow front, the Germans were able to concentrate [on us] the fire of an estimated six to seven battalions of light artillery, one or two medium battalions and at least two batteries of heavy artillery.”
⁴⁹

“Artillery and mortar fire on the 116th Panzer Division advances were bitterly heavy and succeeded in neutralizing many approaches to the network of [their] positions, thus cutting down maneuverability,” another account noted.
⁵⁰
Wire lines for both sides were constantly split by artillery shelling, cutting off communications between units and hamstringing command and control at many levels. Tanks of both sides, whether offensive or defensive in their efforts, could not move into any open areas. “Finally, the action called for willingness to take losses in gaining ground, one of the most difficult things to communicate along the chain of command.”

Most units simply held their positions, assisted with firing plans, marked friendly mines to their front, and maintained guards at gaps until further orders came down. Intense artillery even interfered with the insertion of Colonel Dwyer's 116th Infantry forces; after making contact with Brown's 3rd Battalion of the 119th Infantry at the Gouley mine, the new arrivals took up positions next to the 1st Battalion west of Würselen. Both Companies G and B of Lieutenant Colonel O'Farrell's 66th Armored Regiment battalion were also brought to a halt by
Panzerfaust
and artillery fire along the main road on the northern outskirts of the village.

Company B's commander, Capt. James M. Burt, a 1939 Norwich University graduate who interrupted his civilian career as a chemist in western Massachusetts to join the army two years later, “did more than his share to alleviate the situation.”
⁵¹
Two of his leading tanks had been “shot out from underneath him.” Burt, still nimble from his days as a high school football player, dismounted his tank and worked through his armored infantrymen to a forward position where he could direct artillery fire. Despite exposing himself, he even managed to rescue several of his men who had been wounded before he returned to his command tank; here he continued to direct the company from its rear deck. This time he was wounded in his face and neck, but by “dominating and controlling the critical situation through the sheer force of his heroic example” he held his forces together that day.
⁵²

Dawn on 14 October brought clear skies and another good day for artillery forward observers to see their targets. Almost every attack on the American side saw any momentum stall as “the old pattern of enemy fire was resumed across the brief spaces separating the two forces.”
⁵³
Armored Engineer Battalion 675, now being commanded by
Leutnant
Otto Varnholt, maintained contact with Colonel Sutherland's 119th Infantry forces between Würselen and Kohlscheid; Varnholt mostly dispatched reconnaissance patrols. Panzer Grenadier Regiment 60 “carried the burden of the fighting,”
⁵⁴
but again the main forces of the 116th Panzer Division did not attack in the area because of continued uncertainty about the use of the Greyhounds among the German command; the division's services had been contemplated for the attack on Verlautenheide and Eilendorf with the 3rd Panzer Division the next day, but this only “created amazement” in the view of the 116th's historian in light of the conditions around Würselen, and use with the 3rd Panzers never materialized.

The 116th Infantry's 2nd Battalion had a particularly bad day: an exploding shell fragment wounded its CO, Major Cawthorn, in the left leg and forced his evacuation. The battalion executive officer, Capt. Eccles H. Scott, took command. The commander of Company E, Capt. Robert E. Garcia of San Jose, California, was wounded when he “unwisely peeked around the corner of a house and was the recipient of a shell blast.”
⁵⁵
Historian Joseph Balkoski wrote: