Aachen: The U.S. Army's Battle for Charlemagne's City in World War II (52 page)

This action lit up the area as one of the tanks erupted in flames. “There were so many dead Germans in front of his gun at this time, members of Sergeant Thompson's squad told me they could walk to the tank without putting their feet on the ground,” the 3rd Battalion's Executive Officer, Maj. Sam Carter, told everyone later. But at the time, Thompson was exhausted and now wounded badly. He noticed that some of his squad members were still having trouble taking back Pillbox 6. Somehow, despite his wounds, he managed to crawl toward it, and as Sergeant Osborne later regaled:

Less than 100 yards from the box, Nazi fire opened up. We hit the dirt, but not Max. He fingered his grenade bag and took off. Throwing grenades as he ran, he was wounded by shrapnel, but he never quit. He got up to that pillbox and threw two more hand grenades. The Krauts inside waved the white flag and hollered, “Kamerad!”

“It took three of Sergeant Thompson's men to get him out of the bunker the next morning,” Carter went on to explain. “When they got him back to an aid station where our battalion surgeon, Captain Lawrence Caruso, could work on him, he was completely out of his head. He was apparently stunned from the time he took the light tank out, and had no idea what he was doing after this. So many times the tide of battle is determined by the actions of one soldier, and Max
Thompson was the one soldier who did on Ravelsberg Hill that day.”
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Personally drafting the Medal of Honor citation later awarded to Sergeant Thompson, Carter finished with, “His courageous leadership inspired his men and materially contributed to clearing the enemy from the last remaining hold on the hill.”

In Aachen,
Oberst
Wilck was now very worried about his own ability to hold out. After Farwick Park fell, he sent the following message to LXXXI Corps:

Strong enemy breaches in Aachen at the Quellenhof, city center and Laurensberg. Last defense takes place at Lousberg. Direct counterattack only possible way to break out. Decision requested. Battle strength now about 1,200 men. Battle value insufficient because of continuous demands. Wilck.
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That night an impatient Wilck evinced more anxiety, this time warning: “situation in Aachen such that last resistance probably coming to an end 19 October. Breakout via Soers still possible. Request decision soon. Wilck.”

He got what he asked for; Bradenberg responded later that night, admonishing “the main task of the 246th Division remains the defense of Aachen to the last man.” Wilck was also told his forces had to be combined as the situation called for. “Further, the division has to maintain a mobile force in the area north of Aachen prepared to link up with the SS-Panzer Corps as its attack progresses in the general direction of Soers.”
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The order did reflect some consideration for Wilck's men; preparations were allowed to evacuate his wounded.

Later that same night, the edict to fight to the last man was strengthened by
Generalfeldmarschall
Model, with strong words to
Oberst
Wilck emphasizing the need to persevere, closing with, “You shall hold the venerable German city to the last man and will, if necessary, allow yourself to be buried under its rubble.”
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It was another cold and rainy morning on 19 October. Task Force Hogan, comprised of the 33rd Armored Regiment with troops of the 2nd Battalion 36th Armored Infantry, plus a platoon of engineers, departed from the factory district at 0730. The 30th Infantry Division had taken
Hogan's original objective, Laurensberg, so his orders were modified by General Huebner; after clearing the northern half of the Lousberg, the task force was to wheel north to secure the railroad junction on the Aachen-Laurensberg highway near the Rahe Chateau just south of the village.

As the task force rolled down Soerser Weg it came under some artillery fire from a 150mm howitzer that was called down by German observers on the forward slope of Lousberg Hill. But as Lieutenant Colonel Hogan later noted, “This fire was inaccurate and caused no damage.”
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That was because the plan the Americans had so carefully put in place was working. Corley's forces had moved out before dawn and Botts's Company I had reached the southern end of Salvatorberg by the time Task Force Hogan was approaching the Lousberg. This had permitted Shepard's Company L to attack the eastern edge of the hill mass before Task Force Hogan turned onto Pourweider Weg. Shepard's men confronted the last stubborn German defenders holding out in their pillboxes and in the complex tunnel and cave defensive positions that had been carved into the hill with shovels and jackhammers; the enemy used these advantageous locations to emplace their machine guns.

In a desperate effort to hold,
Oberst
Wilck had inserted three hundred SS troops of Combat Team Rink to counterattack. Shepard's men responded to this challenge by crawling under the trajectory of their guns and moving in close enough to seal off the mouth of the caves with their own fire, enabling other riflemen to trap the German reinforcements in the tunnels themselves. Lieutenant Nechey's mortar crews worked at top speed, turning their searing 81mm tubes a reddish blue while they poured in round after round on more of the SS troops. Combined with the 155 SP gun, which was fired at the observation outpost atop the Lousberg, the effectiveness of the fire on Task Force Hogan was consequently, as Hogan pointed out, initially minimal.

When the task force reached Struver Weg, it split; Companies E and F of the 36th Armored Infantry dismounted and swung south toward the Lousberg's north slope as planned, while the remainder of Hogan's armored vehicles pushed up Struver Weg to Ziegeleiweg and over toward the railroad junction just south of Laurensberg. A platoon of Company F commanded by Lt. Norman C. Streit eventually found a trail that led his men to the base of the Lousberg; here the Germans, other remnants of Battalion Rink's SS troops, were staked out in more emplacements and pillboxes.
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After an hour of small-arms exchanges Streit decided to move
his men away from their fields of fire. Searching the adjacent area on Buchen Allee westward, they found a new trail; the platoon's men saw an opportunity to get at the Germans from the rear.

Lieutenant Streit used this trail to reach a spot on the Lousberg's majestic northernmost slope. Here the soldiers were able to exact the revenge they sought on the gun that had been disturbing the task force's armored vehicles as they were wheeling northward over the sticky clay roadways toward Laurensberg. Streit's men would deal with the Germans in the pillboxes below them later; darkness was settling in by this time. Hogan had moved his armored vehicles close to the Rahe Chateau, but 200 yards short of the railroad junction. His armored vehicles stopped here for the night. Back in Aachen, Lieutenant Colonel Daniel's 2nd Battalion had worked steadily toward the railway station leading from the city up to Laurensberg, destroying
Panzerfaust
positions one by one while clearing out cellars and backyards and battering down walls that blocked their passage. Company F's Lieutenant Webb noted, “This was found more profitable than advancing down the open streets; the cellars were connected and this expedited our advance.”
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Late in the afternoon, a now nearly defeated
Oberst
Wilck issued this final order to his men:

The defenders of Aachen will prepare for their last battle. Constricted to the smallest space, we shall fight to the last man, the last shell, the last bullet, in accordance with the Führer's orders. In the face of the contemptible, despicable treason committed by certain individuals, I expect each and every defender of the venerable Imperial City of Aachen to do his duty to the end, in fulfillment of our Oath to the Flag. I expect courage and determination to hold out. Long live the Führer and our beloved Fatherland.
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German field kitchens also issued the men's last hot rations, a sparse serving of sausage, hard bread, and bitter black coffee.

The 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division commander,
Generalleutnant
Denkert, had already seen many of his men fight to the last bullet on the Ravelsberg this same day; the 116th Panzer Division forces were too busy
around Würselen and had not come to their assistance. The struggle began at daybreak when Captain Russell's 1st Platoon assaulted the only pillbox still occupied by the grenadiers. Fierce fighting broke out inside the box itself; twenty-three POWs, including one officer, were eventually taken. But heavy casualties from the previous day had crippled Russell's chances to continue to defend the hill; tremendously undermanned, the task of holding the forward pillboxes would now have to be shouldered by one of Captain Miller's platoons. Reorganization and bracing for the next attack consumed the rest of the morning, and then at 1400 hours it came.

The Germans suddenly shelled the Ravelsberg unmercifully from three sides—frontally, on Miller's and Russell's left flank, and from the rear by the few artillery pieces still available in Aachen. A later account described just how intense these barrages were:

The enemy fired all calibers of assault guns, mortars and artillery. It was believed that they used 75mm and 88mm tank fire, 80mm and 120mm mortars, and 105mm, 150mm, 170mm and possibly 210mm artillery. It was estimated that 100 or more rounds per minute fell onto Ravelsberg Hill; 3,000 to 4,000 shells fell in an area 300 by 300 yards in just thirty minutes. This was the heaviest barrage and the most concentrated artillery and mortar barrage laid down [on us] by the Germans in this war.
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Nearly every American in a foxhole and not in the more protective cover of a pillbox was either killed or wounded by this incredible volume of fire. Then, adding to the soldiers’ misery, smoke was laid in front of the hill to screen the advance of what was later estimated to be three companies of grenadiers, supported by at least five tanks. At 1430 hours, they began their attack. Pillbox 3 fell back into German hands; all of Miller's men in or around the box were killed. Pillbox 6 was overrun again, but the Company K men would not give up; they continued to fight. One squad from Captain Miller's platoon came over to assist, killing many of the Germans who were molesting this box.

A later Distinguished Unit Citation given to the defenders of the Ravelsberg most adequately describes the continuing action:

Realizing the importance of the terrain they occupied, new men left the shelter and protection of the pillboxes to go forward and
occupy the same exposed and unprotected foxholes which their dead and wounded comrades were in to prevent the enemy from penetrating their positions. These men persistently refused to yield ground and held on with a tenacity gifted to only the most courageous.
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There was a stand of trees that ringed several of the pillboxes and the grenadiers were also trying to take the ground here from the Americans. Without hesitation, Lieutenant Colonel Peckham called for artillery fire on this position; despite the risk to his own men, this strategic ground could not be surrendered to the Germans. It was imperative that they knock down the trees so friendly mortar and artillery fire could be better observed, adjusted, and therefore effective. Company K men were in the eye of this storm, but the artillery barrages proved to be very effective, as observers saw rounds also knock out three panzers that had ventured into the company's fragile lines; however, friendly casualties still resulted from shells that exploded too close to the men.

Others bravely fought on. One squad retook Pillbox 3, killing many and capturing eighteen extremely fatigued grenadiers. Then falling darkness became a friend to both sides; the remaining Germans started withdrawing, leaving two hundred of their dead behind. But the withdrawal did not mean the end to hostilities. Mortars and enemy artillery continued to rain down in a last desperate attempt by the Germans to leave their mark on the Ravelsberg. Rather than “allowing Company K, reduced to a pittance of their original number, to relive Custer's Last Stand and be annihilated,” Peckham ordered the soaked and exhausted survivors off the hill.
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Captain Hess's Company I arrived to relieve them, but the Germans were never to attack again. “Only a few of the brave assault group came back,” the 3rd Panzer Division's
Generalleutnant
Denkert later remembered.
³³

When Task Force Hogan reached the Rahe Chateau that same night, the men found a great deal of ammunition for a 150mm howitzer, as well as mortars and bazookas that the Germans had left behind; there were also empty liquor bottles and discarded flasks scattered over the grounds. Unlike their comrades on the Ravelsberg, it was later noted somewhat wryly in an interview with Lieutenant Colonel Hogan that on
that same day “instead of fighting to the last man here, they fought to the last bottle.”
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At daylight on 20 October, Hogan's Company H captured a
Panzerfaust
gun crew and the observers for the 150mm howitzer who had left their ammunition back on the Rahe Chateau grounds. A barrage of fire was then laid both into the underpass and the surrounding embankment at the railroad junction. This proved to be too much for the remaining Germans here, and they gave up. Then at about 0830 a column of seven half-tracks came forward to surrender; most were loaded with wounded. Hogan placed all of them under the guard of two Company H light tanks. Not long afterward a column of horse-drawn vehicles approached and also surrendered; 145 additional prisoners were taken from this group.

Later that morning Hogan's infantry came off the Lousberg to assist the remainder of the task force at the railroad junction. These men approached the lower pillboxes they had bypassed the night before from the rear as planned and found them all to be abandoned. Lieutenant Colonel Corley's men had evacuated hundreds more civilians and wounded from a nearby hospital; by noon over 400 prisoners were taken in the 3rd Battalion zone of operations around the Lousberg. Daniel's 2nd Battalion forces also had a good day; just after noon a German officer and two of his men came into Captain Smoot's Company E area carrying a white flag; they had started out from a building on the heavily damaged Technical High School's grounds. The officer told Smoot that if an American commander would go back with them, he would surrender his men. This was agreed upon, and as the party approached the building, anxious enemy soldiers started pouring out through windows and doorways; 125 more prisoners marched off to the POW cage. The only active enemy combatants were now corralled in the westernmost fringes of the city. As one American officer aptly noted, “The end was in sight.”
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