Aachen: The U.S. Army's Battle for Charlemagne's City in World War II (30 page)

Linking up with General Huebner's 1st Infantry Division was now uppermost in the minds of the American commanders. During the morning, General Hodges made it clear to General Corlett that his plan
to use CCA to expand the bridgehead eastward and secure crossings over the Roer River had to be put on hold. Instead, Hodges wanted the operations of General Harmon's 2nd Armored Division mainly confined to holding the
Westwall
bridgehead and assisting with the linkup. In the early afternoon Corlett followed Hodges's decision with his own order to have CCB hold in place along the northeastern and eastern fringes of the bridgehead, while also ordering CCA to attack to the southeast in support of the 117th Infantry Regiment.

This changed Colonel Stokes's plans for the afternoon of 6 October.
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After the 14th Armored Field Artillery Battalion reduced the enemy antitank fire in Blanstein, he turned his right column toward Oidtweiler. This village was located just to the south of Boesweiler and to the northeast of Alsdorf. Led by the armored vehicles of Company I and accompanied by the infantry support of the 116th Infantry's Company L, this task force met German resistance throughout their attack, including more antitank guns and artillery fire. Confronting an antitank ditch outside of Oidtweiler as the afternoon wore on, Company L first flushed some twenty Germans from their cover before a tank bulldozer filled the sunken area with dirt so the armored vehicles could cross. Staff Sgt. Richard Hickman was particularly helpful during this action; he dismounted the bulldozer several times while under direct enemy fire so he could guide the driver to the spots where the dirt was most needed.

Late in the day, Company I secured the high ground outside the village. They destroyed two antitank guns and killed thirty German infantrymen, and also took thirty prisoners. Stokes ordered his columns to establish 360-degree security with the Aachen-Settrich highway as their front line that night. Undoubtedly, the presence of CCA brought more discomfort to the German command. Losing Oidtweiler would not only sever the main highway running northeast out of Aachen, but also position CCA for an eventual drive toward the Roer River town of Linnich.

CCA's right column had advanced quite close to the left flank of Colonel Johnson's 117th Infantry Regiment as his forces continued their drive toward zu Ubach on 6 October. It started out slowly for Lieutenant Colonel Frankland's 1st Battalion, however. Jumping off from Ubach at 0800 and then moving across an open field that sloped upward, Captain Kent's Company A first attacked toward the four pillboxes lost at that
time by Cox's 2nd Battalion of the 119th Infantry. Captain Spiker's Company B moved on the left, but both companies’ advances were slowed up just 1,000 yards from their line of departure by heavy concentrations of artillery fire. The attack quickly bogged down and then stopped.

Lieutenant Colonel McDowell's 3rd Battalion was supposed to attack to the left of Frankland's companies, but the German barracks east of Ubach were still giving him problems. Support from the 2nd Armored Division's tanks finally helped reduce this threat when McDowell's Company L launched a coordinated attack early that morning. One participant remembered the joint effort as “fighting up a storm and firing into the barracks,”
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but the plan developed by McDowell with the armored commander had not gone off exactly as he wanted it to. “The original plan was to have the 2nd Armored Division come down east of the barracks while [we] enveloped from the west,” McDowell stated later. “As it actually worked out, they cleaned out the north side and then cut north without making a complete encirclement.”
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While the men of Company L were mopping up the barracks area, the fighter-bombers of IX Tactical Air Command were dropping their loads to the south. Close-support missions were flown during the morning; an early one missed zu Ubach, but after later missions in the afternoon hit the village both Company L and Lieutenant Thompson's Company I were able to finally push off again at 1630. Lt. Floyd M. Jenkins's Company B of the 743rd Tank Battalion went along with these men; the infantry double-timed across the open ground to avoid enemy artillery and mortar fire. Fewer dug-in tanks and antitank guns opposed the advance due to the air strikes and friendly artillery fire, so four of Jenkins's M-4s worked cross country while a fifth went right down the road into zu Ubach. Between the tanks and the rapid move of McDowell's men, the Germans were caught by surprise and their flanks were surrounded when the companies arrived at the hamlet.

By this time Frankland's 1st Battalion had also arrived in the area. Captain Spiker's Company B came in from the northwest, captured the east side of zu Ubach, and set up defenses. Kent's Company A had come through a patch of woods just to the west of the village; his men dug in on its southern edge. The big catch went to Company L. These men took about fifty prisoners, captured the opposing German battalion's command post, destroyed their working telephone system, and in the
process seized their maps. The maps indicated that the Germans had expected the attack to come in from the northeast. With the American attack coming mainly from the north and northwest, they had arranged their defenses in zu Ubach along a road facing in the wrong direction.

When the defeated commander of the 7CO of the 149th Infantry Regiment was questioned about this after he reached the POW cage, his interrogators noted:

Both of his flanks were pushed in by our tanks, causing him to lose contact with the adjacent unit. Asked why he did not withdraw in the tactically logical easterly direction, he replied that pressure was strongest from the north and west, thus forcing them to the south. PW claimed that their defensive strategy was “sabotaged” by our surprise attack from the north.
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CCB had its defensive arc running from north of Frelenberg eastward along the spur railroad below Geilenkirchen, then southeastward through Waurichen and almost to Beggendorf when 6 October dawned. The mission for Major Finnell's 1st Battalion of the 41st Armored Infantry Regiment that day was to cross the railroad and take the high ground just to the north that commanded Geilenkirchen. Two teams jumped off at 0830 and immediately ran into trouble. There were thirty to forty foxholes containing one to three enemy soldiers each just south of the railroad line, and every other hole contained either emplaced automatic weapons or “tank-busters.” One squad under Lieutenant Levitsky took a pillbox in the early going and attempted to advance, but the fire from the German foxholes became so intense that his men were driven back. Tanks and infantry under Lieutenant Smith were also stopped.

Taking advantage of a lull in the antitank fire about midmorning, Smith moved his team to the northeast and reached the hamlet of Jacobshauschen where his Company A infantrymen climbed up to the second story of a building and started delivering rifle fire on the enemy holes. At the same time, Smith's armored component, the 3rd Platoon of Company F from the 67th Armored Regiment, deployed and fired their machine guns at the Germans. His forward observer from the 92nd Field Artillery Battalion also called in artillery fire. Even a tank dozer joined in the assault, covering the holes with the Germans still in them until the dozer's
commander was wounded. The ground south of the railroad was cleared by 1300, but Smith was also wounded in the process. Major Finnell held the men here to await the advance of Lieutenant Colonel Wynne's 2nd Battalion of the 67th Armored Regiment to his right, while his own armored infantry's 2nd Battalion came up on the left. Thirty prisoners had been taken thus far, with between fifty to sixty Germans killed.

When Wynne's armor and the 2nd Battalion failed to arrive in force because of hostile artillery, an anxious Finnell decided to renew that attack at 1700. It was a mistake. Even though taking the high ground overlooking Geilenkirchen may have led to its early capture, the tanks were unable to cross the railroad because of its high cuts and fills. Enemy antitank fire coming in from a wooded area north of Briel and from another cut in the railroad line also made bypassing the area impractical. The Germans by this time had also accurately ranged on the railroad with their mortars and artillery; it was impossible for any of the armored infantrymen to get across the tracks so they pulled back to the ground taken earlier in the afternoon and dug in. Three American officers and fifteen enlisted men were casualties that day.

Colonel Hinds had been in personal contact with his battalion commanders throughout the day. In accordance with General Corlett's order to confine operations mainly to holding the
Westwall
bridgehead, as 6 October wound down his 41st Armored Infantry Regiment concentrated on defending the general line held by Finnell's 1st Battalion southward to Ubach and westward all the way to the banks of the Wurm River. For the next two days, the regiment continued to improve these positions, fend off minor counterattacks, lose some ground, and then take it back. Troops were shifted, but most were digging in, placing trip wires, booby traps, and mines in front of their positions. The Americans had taken sixty-four pillboxes; the engineers either destroyed them or troops used them as shelter. Total prisoners captured since crossing the Wurm on 4 October totaled 556 by 9 October.

The entire 67th Armored Regiment encountered heavy resistance on 6 October. “In several instances the enemy remained in pillboxes after they had been taken,” a report noted. “From these vantage points they had directed artillery fire on our troops.”
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Lieutenant Colonel Wynne's 2nd Battalion did manage to attack to the northeast and his armor, reinforced
by Company E of the 41st Armored Infantry and one section of the 702nd Tank Destroyer Battalion, first provided some fire support to Finnell's infantry as they attempted to cross the railroad line and then make contact with the unit on their right. The 1st Battalion moved its line 1,500 yards. Any attempts to advance by the 3rd Battalion were strongly opposed by heavy enemy artillery and antitank guns. “The enemy had good observation on our movements and positions,” one participant remembered. “Their OP's were located on high points such as smoke stacks, towers and slag piles.”
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Over the next two days, the Germans withdrew toward Immendorf, one American platoon reached Beggendorf to assist with its defense, and the 1st Battalion established outposts in Waurichen. The Americans mined the roads fronting Immendorf and laid some concertina wire in the vicinity. Listening posts were established and “active defense” was noted in every day's operations reports.
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When Beggendorf and Waurichen fell on 6 October,
Generalleutnant
Macholz of the 49th Division noted that it “tore a gap that was extremely dangerous”
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between the inner wings of his 148th Infantry Regiment and the adjacent unit of
Generalleutnant
Lange's 183rd Division; this was the 404th Infantry Regiment of the 246th Division that had come up from Aachen the night before. Lange received Machine Gun Battalion 54 on 6 October to fill this gap. In an attempt to strengthen the line opposite Colonel Stokes's right column of CCA in the vicinity of Oidtweiler, the 2nd Battalion of Grenadier Regiment 48 was arrayed to the left of Machine Gun Battalion 54; the grenadiers took up positions spread along the Settrich-Kloshaus-Alsdorf line. They were destined to tangle with the 117th Infantry Regiment as Colonel Johnson moved his forces farther southward from zu Ubach the next day. From here westward right up to the
Westwall
east of Kerkrade were elements of the 2nd Battalion of Grenadier Regiment 149, both the 1st and 2nd Battalions of Grenadier Regiment 148, and the 1st Battalion of Grenadier Regiment 689.
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The 1st Battalion of Grenadier Regiment 149 had been pushed back from the
Westwall
when Colonel Birks's 120th Infantry Regiment 1st and 2nd Battalions seized Krekrade. Assembled as a reserve force in the area of Bierstrauss—just southwest of Alsdorf—on 5 October, the 1st Battalion of Grenadier Regiment 149 was destined on 7 October to find
itself wedged between the southward drives of Major Greer's 3rd Battalion of the 120th Infantry Regiment and Lieutenant Colonel Herlong's 1st Battalion of the 119th Infantry Regiment. The XIX Corps advance this day would also threaten the flank of the 246th Division responsible for Aachen. LXXXI Corps’ reports would later reflect that on 7 October “the enemy's intention could still not be clearly identified.”
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The Americans, however, would remember it as a day of exploitation against a beaten and disorganized enemy.

The weather was again clear, but even warmer. Colonel Sutherland's 119th Infantry Regiment's mission was to pivot toward Herzogenrath; Herlong's 1st Battalion was to first finish clearing out Merkstein-Hofstadt. Major Greer's 3rd Battalion of the 120th Infantry Regiment, again under Colonel Sutherland's control for the day's operations, was to mop up in Herbach and then move through Merkstein to their objective, the road that ran into Aachen just north of Noppenberg. Lieutenant Colonel Cox's 2nd Battalion, with Captain Hopcraft's Company K attached to augment its strength, was to first secure Adolphschacht. This small hamlet was just northeast of the coal-mining town of Merkstein, between Floes and zu Merkstein; Cox's continuing mission was to occupy the high ground to the east of Merkstein and prevent any enemy infiltration into the village from this direction. Brown's 3rd Battalion had the mission of holding the pivot for the day's operations and cleaning out the pillbox line on the right in the 119th Infantry Regiment's avenue of advance.

Lieutenant Colonel Herlong's 1st Battalion started out slowly at 0752, reached the road intersection northeast of Merkstein Wildnis at 1155, and then stood before the northern edge of Merkstein at 1230. Major Greer's forces, on Herlong's right, cleared out Herbach and by 0910 were 600 yards south of the town. At 1033 Greer moved on to Merkstein Plitschard; this was the first time his men did any fighting in a German town. They set fire to any house occupied by enemy resisters; six burned to the ground. But by 1100, heavy enemy fire from a slag pile to the south held up his Company L. A little over an hour later, the company was able to bypass this area and arrive at zu Merkstein; the Germans on the slag pile surrendered to Lieutenant Colonel Cox's Company G without a fight and eighty prisoners were taken. By this time Greer's 3rd Battalion of the 120th Infantry Regiment was close to Merkstein and at 1312 his lead company reached its northern edge. The 1st Battalion
entered Merkstein without heavy fighting, but in doing so Lieutenant Colonel Herlong remembered, “We flushed a lot of PW's into the zone of the 3rd Battalion, 120th.”
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