Aachen: The U.S. Army's Battle for Charlemagne's City in World War II (38 page)

Defensive preparations then proceeded rapidly. Close-in barrages as well as concentrations on both sides of the ridge were planned by Captain Marshall. The battalion's anti-tank guns and the attached regimental anti-tank platoon were brought up; additional heavy machineguns from Company D were displaced forward while the 81mm mortar platoon was sent into Eilendorf where their fires could be coordinated with the supporting field artillery. Re-supply of ammunition was completed by nightfall and the dead and remaining wounded were evacuated to Eilendorf. New field phone lines were laid, and the circuit leading to the regimental command post soon came back to life.

Long before the 1st Battalion began organizing for its defense that dismal night, Lieutenant Colonel Peckham's 3rd Battalion had jumped off from Eilendorf for the diversionary attack on Hill 192 beside Haaren. Capt. Robert E. Hess's Company I and Capt. William A. Russell's Company K led the attack. The hill fell quickly; it took less than two hours and there were few casualties. Captain Folk's Company L was then tasked with cleaning out the north end of Rothe Erde where seesaw fighting soon developed in a large rubber factory: an American platoon held one
half of the building, the Germans the other. Early that evening orders came down from regiment directing Lieutenant Colonel Peckham to take Haaren the next morning.

During the afternoon, while Brown's men were on Crucifix Hill, Colonel Seitz's 26th Infantry Regiment also made their planned diversionary strikes; Company F got its limited drive started from a slag pile, first crossing muddy terrain pocked with bomb craters, and then the men reached the desired section of railroad line next to Triererstrasse, a main road into Aachen.
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But the real noise was made by the 1st Engineer Combat Battalion, commanded by Lt. Col. Bill Gara, a clear-thinking, industrious officer with a wicked sense of humor.

His men had found two abandoned streetcars on the same railroad tracks, which were elevated some three hundred yards above the city of Aachen at this location.
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They had also previously discovered a captured ammunition dump with German teller mines and other explosives. Gara came up with the brilliant scheme to load one of the streetcars with a couple tons of these explosives, including roughly six rockets, fifty 88mm shells, two boxes of 20mm ammo, another two boxes of 37mm shells, and some hand and rifle grenades for good measure; it was well booby trapped and had a five-minute time fuse. The engineers planned to get the bomb rolling down the line toward Aachen; Gara added a personal touch and had a big sign tagged onto it reading “V-13,” trumping the German V-1s and V-2s that had been flying over Aachen in the past few days.

He had even invited members of General Huebner's staff to join him at an observation post to watch the big show. It opened when the engineers gave the streetcar a shove with a tank dozer, carefully calculated in thrust so the car would be set in motion and gain enough speed to reach its destination—the edge of Aachen—before the time fuse set off the rolling bomb. Daniel's 2nd Battalion men had been told that the engineers were going to try to pull this off, but as the streetcar passed their positions there was sweat on the brows of the brass in the observation post; was it going fast enough?

Sure enough, it was. At first, anyway. Halfway between Daniel's line and the city's edge it blew up; the motor had not been disconnected and had acted like a brake, causing the show to stop short of its intended audience. But Daniel recalled that there was a tremendous explosion
for his men to witness, and that it had caused the Germans to expose their positions when they fired rifles at the streetcar. It certainly took the attention away from Crucifix Hill, if for only those few shining moments.

Lieutenant Colonel Corley's 3rd Battalion diversion coincided with Lieutenant Colonel Williamson's dash up to Verlautenheide in the early morning hours. His men had passed several darkened homes on their way to Beverau, necessitating that they circle back and clean out the houses one by one when they were attacked from the rear. “It was time consuming, but it illustrated to the battalion commanders just what lay ahead in painstakingly and thoroughly clearing each house, and each room in the houses,” the after-action report noted later.
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This report also revealed that prisoners taken that day had told their interrogators reinforcements and supplies were still coming into Aachen on the roadway between Crucifix Hill and the Ravelsberg.

Back in the 1st Battalion CP in Verlautenheide, Lieutenant Colonel Learnard's staff had transitioned to planning the next morning's attack on the still-active pillboxes in front of Scott-Smith's Company A. But the line from regiment lit up just as everyone was gaining comfort with the new strategy; it was Colonel Smith. General Huebner wanted the Ravelsberg plan put into place immediately. The 2nd Battalion, which had just reported a heavy German buildup to the east of Verlautenheide, would extend its lines to Crucifix Hill and become responsible for its defense, Smith told Learnard. Remembering his reaction, Captain McGregor later wrote, “This did not set too well with the battalion commander.”
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By now the tempo of artillery and mortar fire along the entire Crucifix-Verlautenheide ridge was increasing hourly, the typical German pattern before an imminent large-scale counterattack. Ravelsberg Hill had never been mentioned to Learnard in any discussions during the advanced planning to take Crucifix Hill. With such short notice and very little intelligence about the German dispositions on the Ravelsberg, any planning would now have to be done with a simple map reconnaissance. Learnard discussed these disquieting facts with Colonel Smith; it won him over. Smith told him to clean up to Scott-Smith's front, but first brace for the impending counterattack on Crucifix Hill and still get a plan for the Ravelsberg.

Outside the CP, the German shelling was now growing louder and louder and “falling like rain” at one-minute intervals. Captain McGregor remembered, “The ridge literally shook with the impact of crunching shells. In the inky blackness of the rain-swept night, the men cursed and dug, prayed and waited. The silence between each succeeding round was deadly as the weary men strained their ears and other senses for tell-tale signs of an unwelcome visitor.”
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Shortly after 0400 hours, the German shelling suddenly stopped. Then whooping Germans appeared on the northern and western slopes, hoping to take back Crucifix Hill by storm. “Three waves of infantrymen and assault engineers came over,” remembered Captain Brown. “I ordered my men to hold their fire until the Germans were almost on top of us. Then, as the enemy was silhouetted by our artillery flares and illuminating shells, they opened up with murderous grazing fires that piled the onrushing Germans up in front of their foxholes.”
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His heavy machine gunners, commanded by Company D's Lt. Thomas Yarbor, added to the mayhem, swinging their guns with free traverse and blazing away the entire time.

It was too much for their opposite numbers. “The Germans then withdrew as suddenly as they had attacked, leaving behind 40 dead within rock throwing distance,” Captain Brown told everyone later. “Over one hundred others could be seen lying in the path of our fires.” Captain McGregor recalled, “Crucifix Hill was an erupting volcano. The effect on the Germans was deadly. Their bodies were stacked like cord wood in front of Company C's positions.” “Huns dropped like flies,” said Lieutenant Yarbor. “We counted not more than 75 yards from our machinegun positions about 50 dead.”
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Prisoners later identified the bodies as soldiers in companies of Pioneer Battalion 12 and Fusilier Regiment 27, both attached to the supposed saviors of Aachen, the 12th Infantry Division.
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Later that morning, two self-propelled 155mm guns emplaced north of Eilendorf ravaged the Germans still holding out in front of Captain Scott-Smith's Company A. “This completed one of the most difficult and important missions ever assigned to the 1st Battalion,” Brown wrote later. “We lost one officer, Captain Cambron, and five enlisted men. Two other officers were wounded; 33 enlisted men were as well. No one was captured by the enemy.”
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“As was expressed by witnesses to the action,” Captain McGregor noted, “the success of Company C in accomplishing this extremely difficult mission was largely due to the effort of one man, Captain Bobbie Brown. His incredible action had inspired his men with an unbounded fighting spirit. For his brave deeds, Captain Brown was awarded the Medal of Honor.”
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The award presentation took place in the White House after the war, where President Harry Truman had said he would have given anything to trade places with Brown. “He was worth a regiment to me,” added an equally admiring General Huebner.
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Lieutenant Colonel Williamson's 2nd Battalion was not as fortunate on 9 October. When their artillery pummeled Crucifix Hill, the Germans also laid an intense bombardment across Verlautenheide, hitting both Captain Koenig's Company F and the battalion command post just west of the Quinx crossroads. At the time Brown was counterattacked, the enemy deployed another battalion-sized force against Williamson's positions; these were two companies of the 12th Engineering Battalion and one company of Regiment 27. At 0420 hours, a platoon from Captain Jeffrey's Company G was almost overrun; shortly afterward the attackers closed to within 40 yards of Captain Koenig's company perimeter. Then, the Germans gained control of the railroad junction and the street just across from the battalion CP.

The Americans reacted swiftly; Koenig rushed a squad toward the building holding the command group where these men set up a firing line. But the Germans were quick, too. A fire was ignited in a nearby barn to add more to the shock of the attack; Captain Jeffrey had a platoon sheltering in a potato cellar here. Flames were engulfing the structure; cries from within could be heard. Fast-thinking Sgt. Walter L. Reed saved the day for these men by emptying his Thompson submachine gun into the Germans barring escape, and his men were able to rush out and avoid being totally overcome by smoke. Then, there was a lull in the action, but not for long.

Forty-five minutes later, the regrouped Germans started firing
Panzerfausts
around the streets; a group even crossed over and got right outside of the battalion CP. Koenig's firing line held them off, but only briefly.

By now faint, first light had started to filter in; a desperate Williamson called for tank support and at dawn five Shermans and four
of Lieutenant Duffy's TDs answered by lining up on the same side of the street as the CP. Williamson radioed words to the effect of “shoot at everything,” and moments later the tanks and TDs were blasting buildings, anything moving on the streets, and every German they could see with their 75mm and 76mm machine guns. Duffy later explained: “If any more Company F doughboys were on the other side of the street, they were probably in cellars and pinned down. One destroyer literally sprayed the buildings. During the engagement an enemy shell fragment ripped the radiator off this vehicle and another was hit shortly afterwards, leaving us with three damaged TD's. All remained in action.”
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As did the infantry. A platoon from Captain Koenig's Company E and another squad from Jeffrey's ranks joined in the fight, finally forcing the Germans to pull back. The line was restored by 0830 hours; three Americans had been killed, many had been wounded, and twelve were missing. Seventy-five Germans and two of their officers were made prisoners, and an unknown number had been killed or wounded.
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Williamson's emphasis had certainly not been on their wounded. He ordered half-tracks to keep dashing back and forth between Verlautenheide and Eilendorf during breaks in the still-constant German artillery strikes so the bloodied Americans could be carried to aid. He also ordered a search of every house in Verlautenheide, and to shoot any German straggler who chose not to immediately surrender. Williamson learned later that another attack by the 246th Fusilier Battalion on the ridge where the 16th Infantry was protecting his flank had thankfully come to nothing.
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Enemy artillery and mortars also hit both Hess's Company I and Captain Russell's Company K at daybreak on Hill 192. The shelling lasted for about an hour, then it was lifted so the Germans could infiltrate forward to counterattack. Sgt. William A. Nickell, a tank destroyer commander, first answered by leveling machine-gun fire at the leading squad, and then Company M's heavy mortars were lobbed in; the rifle companies and the Germans were too close to risk friendly artillery fire. Although many of the attackers had already fallen, Hess ordered his men to employ their final protective fires, waiting until those still advancing got even closer. When they did, close-range M-1 rounds felled most of those left; a few tried to cut and run. They didn't get far.

During this time, Captain Folk's Company L was still fighting in Rothe Erde, but by late morning the northern sections of the village were cleared out. The platoon struggling in the rubber factory finally overcame their opposition and Folk's command group celebrated by climbing up to the top of the building where they could see right into the center of Aachen. A thousand rounds of hostile artillery had fallen on Peckham's 3rd Battalion during the morning; combined with the fierce attacks that had come across his entire front, Colonel Smith, on orders from General Huebner at noon, postponed Peckham's assault on Haaren and Learnard's move over to the Ravelsberg.

In Omnia Paratus
, “In All Things Prepared,” became the 18th Infantry Regiment's motto after President Abraham Lincoln authorized its formation in 1861. Today would be no exception. Lieutenant Colonel Learnard, now freed from a simple map reconnaissance of the Ravelsberg, spent that afternoon with Captains McGregor and Miller visually inspecting its layout from atop Crucifix Hill. What they saw concerned them. Unlike the barren hill they were on, the Ravelsburg was covered with trees and shrubs, concealing any German preparations, pillbox locations, or troop dispositions from view, even with binoculars. They would have to cross the “big road,” the artery carrying supplies and funneling reinforcements to the Germans in Aachen, to get there; traffic was visible, even at that time of the day. The stretch across the road to the foot of Ravelsberg Hill was wide open. Weighing all of this, everyone agreed that the only viable approach was along a bare ridgeline they could make out across the roadway, then through an orchard that led to the southern slope of the hill mass.