Aachen: The U.S. Army's Battle for Charlemagne's City in World War II (14 page)

In the center of the attack that day Task Force Lovelady also faltered. After Getter's men moved over to support Mills's initiative, Company E with its six tanks and just one officer, along with another light tank platoon, worked their way across a field toward the woods between Diepenlinchen and Niederhof. Two tanks were lost under a cascade of enemy artillery, mortar, and antitank fire.
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In light of this, Lovelady's task force returned to the woods from which they had departed.

VII Corps planned more massed artillery strikes at 0700 on the morning of 20 September before the renewed attack jumped off to secure the objectives of the day before. Colonel Boudinot again ordered a general attack to seize Weissenberg and to clear the woods to the west before taking the all-important Donnerberg Fortress—Hill 287. Planning had been completed the night before; one of the participants was Major Adams's S-3, Captain Levasseur. Based on reports from prisoners taken in Diepenlinchen, they expected a counterattack on their left flank. Hogan seized on this and instead developed a plan to have his tanks sally into the woods concealing the German positions beneath Weissenberg. After midnight, this attack indeed went off; Hogan had no losses before German defensive fires started up as he withdrew early in the morning.

Then, at first light Levasseur had a novel idea:

While shaving, my mind was mulling over the events of the previous night, including periodic harassing fires by our tanks and artillery on the objective…and the dense fog existing at this time. I visualized the enemy in entrenched positions sleepless and exhausted from our previous day's attacks and frequent shelling during the night. I stopped in the middle of my shave to suggest to Major Adams and Colonel Hogan that, under the circumstances, an attack by our infantry with fixed bayonets but without any supporting fires might be more effective by surprising the enemy asleep in their trenches. They both considered this briefly and agreed it just might work.
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Hogan, in fact, requested cancellation for all supporting fires and he also kept his tanks in place. Aided by the heavy ground fog that limited their opposite numbers’ visibility to no more than 50 feet, Captain Anderson's Company A jumped off at 0800 and got right into the central factory area without being detected. The Germans were caught off guard, many of them indeed asleep, and the main part of the factory fell to Anderson's men; they took thirty-three prisoners and the company suffered only two casualties. Captain Simons's Company B had attacked and made good progress through the rock piles; his men seized the east side of the factory area. However, by this time the Germans had recovered from these surprise attacks, and Simons's last platoon to come up started receiving hostile artillery fire. This did not stop the advance. Sending his soldiers forward man by man, Captain Simons soon had the company infiltrating through the open rock piles toward Weissenberg. While the Americans remained in the open, they were very fortunate that the Germans did not fire at them.

This relative calm did not last for long; more hostile artillery fires eventually opened up. Adams's infantry reached the village by late morning; Lieutenant Jones brought Company C up to join Company B, and both companies finally occupied the former defensive positions of the Germans in Weissenberg. Their artillery fire joined with mortars continued to harass the Americans into the afternoon, but a counterattack never materialized.

Oberst
Engel later noted the tactical impact of Major Adams's seizure of Weissenberg on his offensive plans, recalling:

The terrain in the left sector on both sides of Mausbach was still considered the most favorable direction for [our] attack. There, the observation for heavy arms and artillery, and the terrain for panzers, were thought to be the most appropriate. Here, the original order to reach the first Westwall line could be carried out in the shortest time. The enemy's main communication and supply line—the road Stolberg-Vicht-Zweifall—could be cut.

Therefore, the loss of the dumps at Weissenberg was felt grievously. The dumps dominated the terrain to the north up to Eschweiler and Weissenberg and they enabled a view to be obtained of Mausbach, Hastenrath and the southern parts of the woods of Eschweiler.
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Task Force Lovelady also attempted to attack in conjunction with Major Adams's infantry on that cloudy and overcast 20 September. During the early morning, Captain Getter's Company H—with just fifty-four men—first moved along the edge of the enemy-held woods before coming up to the left of Lieutenant Jones's Company C. Resistance was initially weak; Getter's forces encountered just small-arms fire, but as soon as they got away from the woods enemy artillery rained in. This brought about a change in plans. Getter was ordered back to his start line, where his men mounted tanks to ride to Mausbach and collect their half-tracks for another assignment. The rest of Task Force Lovelady remained in the woods in which they had held up the day before.

Captain Vaughn's two Company I platoons had moved across to follow Getter's forces that morning. His men attacked, and by 1100 they had reached some buildings and sand pits 800 yards to the northeast where they encountered dug-in German infantry. Three tanks from Company D of the 33rd Armored Regiment had accompanied Vaughn's men, and these armored vehicles moved up to attack an enemy machine-gun position. The situation, according to a later report, “got too hot to handle,”
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and Vaughn also had to withdraw. He ordered his thirty men to head back to their vehicles; both Company H and Company I would move over to assist Task Force Mills.

Colonel Boudinot had first ordered Mills to hold his defensive position at Hochwegerhof that morning, while other elements of his task force went over to protect the left flank of Major Adams's 1st Battalion and Lovelady's two depleted infantry companies. Then at noon Mills was called back to Boudinot's bunker command post in the woods east of Diepenlinchen where he received new orders. It was a significant change: at 1430 Task Force Mills was to attack to the northwest, across a ridge, and then directly through the valley leading to the formidable Donnerberg fortress—Hill 287.

This was also a daunting task. Mills had few tanks and infantry available to him. Company F had just six tanks and fifteen men. Mills also had his fifteen Company A light tanks defending in Hochwegerhof. They held off the attack until the six Company I tanks could come up. During the wait a heavy artillery barrage came in from the direction of Hill 287, disrupting the refueling of the tanks and spoiling the pace of reloading their ammunition. Then, just after the friendly fire plan for the attack was worked out, Capt. John Watson and his artillery forward observer became casualties from the enemy fire.

A delayed artillery preparation nevertheless went off at approximately 1530 hours. Concentrations were laid on Duffenter, toward the village of Donnerberg and directly onto Hill 287. Assault guns also spread smoke on the hill mass, while other artillery fire clouded Mills's right flank. Then the attack jumped off, with Companies F and I medium armor leading in lines of five tanks, making a total of three waves, with ten of Company A's light tanks that had moved over from Hochwegerhof following. As the lead tanks crossed the ridge before going down into the valley toward Duffenter, they opened up with their guns on Hill 287. The smoke protection continued doing its job, permitting the tanks to run and fire, combining speed with firepower. Just one tank commander was wounded as the attack advanced through the crossroads outside of Duffenter, then up toward the Donnerberg fortress. “Only the smoke and speed saved the task force,” an account of the action noted. “Direct 88mm fire had been coming throughout the afternoon, probably from a Mark VI tank known to be in the area.”
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Company B of the 703rd Tank Destroyer Battalion, commanded by Lt. G. W. Burkett, had destroyed several other enemy armored vehicles during the attack. The mission of the TDs was to protect the right flank
of the task force, which they did by first moving three of their vehicles over to a slope that afforded some defilade ten minutes before the general attack started. A Mark V tank was spotted about 1,200 yards out in front of Hill 287, and the American gunner scored. “The turret of the enemy tank swung around as it was hit,” Lieutenant Brown, leader of the 1st Platoon remembered. “Then it shot straight up.”
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During the general attack, the three destroyers concentrated on the German pillbox positions and their infantry, including soldiers who were laying communication wires. Houses in the valley and in Duffenter were also targets. Aiming above the attacking waves of Task Force Mills, the TD fire was instrumental in helping the tanks reach almost to the top of the hill mass. Then at dusk another Mark V pulled out from behind a pillbox near a church on the back side of the hill and started after the American tanks. This time Brown recalled, “We let the Mark V get halfway from the pillbox to the church, then opened fire on it and knocked it out.”

Despite the efforts of the TDs, Task Force Mills met increased resistance after they reached the top of Hill 287. Several tanks were hit by more fire from the backside of the hill before they could take cover. Seven medium tanks were rapidly knocked out, three from Company I and four from Company F. This forced the remainder of the tanks to withdraw back into a defensive position southwest of Duffenter, leaving some of the American wounded behind.

Frantic efforts had been made all afternoon to get more infantry forces up to help out, but none were available. Even a medic half-track failed three times to get up onto the hill and evacuate the wounded. Then just after 1900 the Germans called down artillery fire for forty-five minutes, some of the most intense Task Force Mills had received in the past several days. After darkness fell, small-arms fire opened up from the houses in Duffenter, as well as from the church yard and pillboxes on the hill. Throughout the night, the tankers had to dismount to guard their vehicles. One of Company I's remaining tanks was knocked out by a
Panzerfaust
, and its commander was badly injured.

Lt. Hans Zeplien of 14Co lent perspective to the day's actions in his diary, and also recorded the recollections of another German soldier who saw action against Company A in Hochwegerhof late in the day.

[Unknown to the Americans, due] to high casualties during the previous days, the 2nd Battalion of Grenadier Regiment 89—
so far involved in defensive fighting near Schevenhutte—became employed in the Hochwegerhof-Duffenter sector on 20 September.

Then towards evening [the Americans] set out with an armored group against the farm buildings in Hochwegerhof and took the farm against the violent resistance of the 6th Co/89 of the 2nd Battalion. Unteroffizier [Corporal] Nuebert of 6th Co reported: “Escaped from Hochwegerhof by dawn. Noticed there five halftracks, one heavy machinegun and five tanks of the Sherman type. One group of engineers out of the 12th Engineering Battalion on a mine-laying mission was encountered by that armored combat group, and may have been killed. At the time of my escape, 20 of our soldiers were still in Hochwegerhof; one radio operator, one wachtmeister [sergeant] severely wounded, five members of the air force, six members of 6th Co and seven men from other units. There was one German caterpillar tractor left in the farmyard.”
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On the other side of Stolberg, the attack around Munsterbusch was also renewed at daylight on 20 September, a day when the 1st Division artillery ammunition situation was so bad that fire missions were refused unless enemy positions could actually be observed. At 0930 Captain Merendino's Company B jumped off with Orr's Company B to secure the road leading from Munsterbusch to Busbach. But the enemy infiltrated throughout their positions while the companies worked through the rows of houses along this roadway. “It was a question of going from building to building,” Driscoll remembered. “Rifle squads would go from the bottom to top, with the tanks [Lieutenant Colonel] Blanchard sent up helping some. Civilians found in the cellars were a hindrance in the fighting, but they were left there and later evacuated.”
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“The enemy had four or more Mark V tanks which kept the streets covered,” Orr added. “They fought with great stubbornness.”
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Finally, the infantry found they had to operate with bazookas and rifle grenades. From behind, tanks would cover the buildings, firing over the heads of the advancing foot soldiers. In squad groups they would move up and take over the buildings, cleaning them out with grenades. Late in the afternoon we got
three tanks cornered at a four-way road junction and the infantry moved up with bazookas to knock them out. They caught one in the act of trying to blast its way through the wall of a nearby factory in order to affect an escape. [Driscoll's] men came up on the right to fire with bazookas on the southernmost of the three remaining tanks and blew its turret off. About 100 to 150 prisoners were taken from the buildings south of the railroad spurs which forked around the factory area to the north.

Lieutenant Colonel Blanchard's continuing mission for his 1st Battalion of the 32nd Armored Regiment on 20 September was to open up the Munsterbusch-Busbach road from the north, then pivot southward to attack the pillboxes and dragon's teeth from the rear.
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This became possible after Orr's and Driscoll's infantry cleared the ground across the stretch where the roadway began. Task Force Miller, meanwhile, was ordered to push north through the pillbox line and regain the main crossroad at Busbach that was evacuated the day before. This attack moved off at 1230, and by 1335 they reached the crossroad. Company D infantry then moved up the main street while Miller's tanks roamed through the backyards of the houses.

Captain Russell, the S-1 for the 36th Armored Infantry Regiment, was an eyewitness to the events that followed. During the afternoon he had been conducting reconnaissance for a new command post so he saw the fight from a good observation point. “The iron gate at the dragon's teeth was not in place and nothing else had been put on the road,” he recalled. “No fire came from the enemy as the tanks approached in single column. Lieutenant Colonel Miller sent his tanks through the obstacles after dispatching one tank to the rear of the houses on the road [where I was]. I saw 20 or more Germans beginning to walk from one pillbox close to the road northeastward to a second box. They were apparently unaware of Miller's tanks, now some 100 yards away.”
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