Ardennes 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble (11 page)

General Hodges refused to consider another plan. Even now, knowing the importance of the dams, he did not plan to swing round to the south. He ordered the 1st, the 8th and the 104th Infantry Divisions as well as the 5th Armored Division and the rest of the 4th Division into the
Hürtgen Forest. This would constitute the right flank of the joint Ninth and First Army offensive. On 12 November, the British Second Army began its offensive east from its Nijmegen salient. Despite the rain, mud and mines, over the next ten days it cleared the west bank of the Maas up to Venlo and Roermond, both close to the Dutch–German border. Also that day, the 1st Division left its rest area west of Aachen in trucks for the northern sector of the forest.

The third offensive into the Hürtgen Forest began, after several delays, on 16 November. By then sleet had started to turn to snow on the higher ground. The 1st Division in the north was to advance from the Stolberg corridor on the town of Düren, which along with Eschweiler and Jülich was almost totally flattened under the weight of 9,700 tons of bombs dropped by the Allied air forces. Düren was also shelled nightly by American artillery.

Soon after the leading elements of the 1st Division had entered the pinewoods, they and their supporting tanks came under heavy artillery and small-arms fire from the 12th Volksgrenadier-Division.
‘There was a stream
of wounded soldiers coming out of the woods,’ wrote the novice machine-gunner Arthur Couch. ‘One man I noticed was holding onto his stomach in an effort to hold in a large wound that was allowing his intestines to spill out. Quickly a front line medic came up and helped the man lie down and he put on a large bandage around his stomach and then injected him with morphine. An old sergeant told me to lie low behind large rocks and then move towards the last German artillery shell blast. He said that was the safest thing to do since the German gunners always turned the crank on their gun a few notches to hit another position. I did run into the last shell burst and the next shell landed 30 yards away. This was life-saving advice.’

Once again, as a 1st Infantry Division officer observed, the Germans tried to pin the American attackers down with small-arms fire
‘then blast hell out of us with artillery and mortars’
. Newcomers had been told to stand close behind a large tree, as it offered some protection from tree bursts. The one thing to avoid was lying flat on the ground as that increased your chances of being hit by shards of steel or wood splinters. The Americans tried to use heavy 4.2-inch mortars in support, but their crews soon found a wide dispersion in the fall of their rounds because of the effect of the cold, wet weather on the propellant. And when the
ground was saturated, the base plate would be hammered further into the mud with each round.

‘The German artillery’
, wrote Couch, ‘was pre-aimed on the forest roads and also had been set to explode when hitting a tree top so the shell fragments sprayed down on us. This caused many dangerous wounds or deaths. I was seeing many wounded or dying men … at first I used to kneel down and talk to them but I soon found that too much to bear. I think seeing such wounds was starting to break through my defensive shield.’ His greatest admiration was for the medics who ran to help the wounded ‘even under heavy artillery or machine guns while we would stay in more protected places’.

In the forest, most German soldiers lost their fear of tanks. They could stalk them with the Panzerfaust. Or at a slightly longer range, they used the Panzerschreck, known as an ‘Ofenrohre’ or ‘stovepipe’, which was a larger version of the American bazooka. The German soldier or
Landser
also used the Panzerfaust as close-range artillery in the forest. Not surprisingly, as the chief of staff of the Seventh Army pointed out, the Germans found it
‘easier to defend in the woods than in the open’
, because American tanks had such difficulties operating there. Engineers would remove most of the mines along the narrow, muddy tracks, but almost always one would be missed and the first tank through would be immobilized and block the route.

The 1st Infantry faced bitter resistance, and heavy artillery fire.
‘Just before dawn,’
continued Couch, ‘a large bombardment began mainly hitting the trees above us. Being night and really dangerous, the new troops became very anxious and started moving around in panic. I tried to hold onto one or two of them, saying stay in your foxholes or you may get killed … This was the first time I had seen battlefield panic and could understand how some men get very traumatized and shell-shocked … Other later cases were sent to the rear for treatment. It is too dangerous for the rest of us to have such disturbances in our midst while we need to move forwards.’

The 4th Division, with Colonel Buck Lanham’s 22nd Infantry Regiment in the centre, set out eastwards up the great ridge which ran down to Schmidt. The plan was to begin with Grosshau almost at the top, while the 8th Division on its right attacked the village of Hürtgen, and then Kleinhau. But the casualty rate for every metre of ground gained
was appalling. American commanders had no idea that the reason for the desperate German defence was to prevent a breakthrough just north of the start-line for the forthcoming Ardennes offensive.

Even the tiny villages, often no more than a hamlet in size, had their own church solidly built in the same grey and brown stone. Schmidt’s 275th Infanterie-Division had sent a number of men off for intensive sniper-training courses. American officers had to wear their field glasses inside their shirt to avoid being targeted, and yet, as Colonel Luckett of the 4th Division pointed out, visibility seldom stretched beyond seventy-five yards, making it very difficult for snipers on the ground. The Germans also made use of a flak battery of 88mm guns south-west of Mariaweiler, which fired at Allied bombers on their way to German cities. At the same time, a forward observation post could warn them if their guns needed to be switched to an anti-tank role.

Schmidt’s officers could rely on local foresters for much of their intelligence in the area, which gave them a great advantage. The Americans, they noticed, bothered to carry out reconnaissance only when about to attack a particular sector, which thus revealed their objective for the next day. German officers and NCOs were adept at exploiting American mistakes. Junior American commanders were often tempted to pull back at night after taking ground, but the Germans would move in and it would become impossible to dislodge them next day. And an attack was not the only time GIs bunched together. Whenever a prisoner was captured,
‘twelve to twenty men
will pile around, and that is going to cause a lot of casualties’.

The Germans kept their tanks well dug in and camouflaged, and used them mostly as a psychological weapon.
‘In the daytime,’
an American officer reported, ‘they are comparatively quiet, but at dawn, dusk and at intervals during the night they become active. They continually move around and shoot, just enough to keep our troops in an almost frantic state of mind.’ American officers resolved to keep their tank destroyers well forward to reassure their men. Infantry tended to panic and retreat once their supporting tanks moved back to replenish with fuel and ammunition, so whenever possible a reserve platoon of tanks needed to be ready to take their place. It was not easy because armoured vehicles were so vulnerable in the dark woods. Each platoon of light tanks needed a squad of infantry, and a mine-removal squad from the engineers. Tank
crews seem to have been even more frightened than the infantry in the forest.
‘One time we didn’t get
out of the tanks for four days,’ recorded one soldier. ‘Heavy artillery, 88s, mortars,
screaming meemies
[from the German Nebelwerfer rocket launcher] pounding in all around us. You got out of your tank to take a leak and you were a dead duck. We used our damn helmets and dumped them out of the turret.’

As Colonel Lanham’s 22nd Infantry Regiment slogged its way up the thickly wooded hill towards the hamlet of Kleinhau, it found that the Germans had cut the lower branches from the trees to the front to provide better fields of fire for their MG-42 machine guns. A sudden charge forced the first outposts to flee, but further on the Americans were stopped by a
‘booby-trapped stretch
of tangle-foot barbed wire twenty-five yards deep’. As they surveyed the obstacle, a sudden salvo of mortar fire hit them. This was just the start of their Calvary. All three of Lanham’s battalion commanders were killed. In one of the most horrific incidents, three German soldiers stripped a badly wounded American of his possessions, then placed an explosive charge under him which would explode if he was moved. He was not found for seventy hours, but had just enough strength left to warn his rescuers.

The 4th Infantry Division gradually adapted to forest fighting. Each company was divided into two assault groups and two support groups. The assault groups carried only personal weapons and grenades. The support groups behind, keeping just within sight, had the mortars and machine guns. The scouts and the assault group in front needed to maintain ‘direction by compass’ because it was so easy to lose all sense of direction in the woods. As they advanced, the support group would reel out signal wire for communications, but also, rather like Hansel and Gretel, to guide runners, ammunition carriers and litter bearers.

American divisions in the forest soon found that tracks, firebreaks and logging trails should be used not as boundaries but as centre lines. Units should advance astride them, although never up them because they were so heavily booby-trapped and targeted by the Germans in their artillery fire-plans. The Germans had zeroed in their mortars on every track, as part of the 1st Infantry Division had found to its cost; so to save lives the division attacked through the forest itself. It also sited command posts well away from trails, even though this too cost time.

In mid-November the weather turned very cold. Many exhausted men had thrown away their heavy wool overcoats when they became impregnated with rain and mud.
‘A heavy snow
two feet or more fell on the whole forest,’ wrote Couch with the 1st Infantry Division. ‘One day we were walking through a forward area where another company had made an earlier attack. I saw a line of about six soldiers standing leaning forward with pointed rifles in the deep snow – seemingly in an attack. But I then noticed they didn’t move at all. I said to a comrade: they must be dead and are frozen stiff as they were hit. I had taken the precaution of stuffing my left breast pocket with German coins to block a bullet or shrapnel to my heart – but I knew it was silly.’

Further south, General Patton continued to pressure his commanders to attack. On Saturday 11 November, the 12th Army Group diarist joked that it was both
‘Armistice Day and Georgie
Patton’s birthday: the two are incompatible’. Exactly a week later, Patton’s Third Army finally encircled Metz, and four days later resistance within the fortress city ceased. Patton’s obsession with capturing Metz had led to heavy losses among his own troops. His arrogance and impatience, after the lightning victories of the summer, had contributed greatly to the heavy casualties. The constant rain, which had swollen the Moselle over its flood plain, made the crossing south of Metz a sodden nightmare. Patton told Bradley how one of his engineer companies had taken two days of frustration and hard work to connect a pontoon bridge across the fast-flowing river. One of the first vehicles across, a tank destroyer, snagged on a cable which then snapped. The bridge broke loose and swung downstream.
‘The whole damn company sat down in the mud’
, Patton related, ‘and bawled like babies.’

In the south, a US Seventh Army attack on the Saverne Gap in mid-November enabled the French 2nd Armoured Division to break through and into Strasbourg itself, thundering right up to the Kehl bridge over the Rhine. And on the 6th Army Group’s right flank, General de Lattre’s First Army liberated Belfort, Altkirch and Mulhouse to advance south of Colmar, where it would be halted by German resistance within what became known as the ‘Colmar pocket’.

The defence of Strasbourg was an inglorious episode in the history of
the German army. The SS had looted Strasbourg before withdrawing. According to one general defending Strasbourg, soldiers ordered to
‘fight to the last round’
tended to throw most of their ammunition away before the battle, so that they could claim they had run out and then surrender. Generalmajor Vaterrodt, the Wehrmacht commander, was scornful about the behaviour of senior officers and Nazi Party officials.
‘I am surprised that Himmler
did not have anyone hanged in Strasbourg,’ he told fellow officers after he had been captured. ‘Everyone ran away, Kreisleiter, Ortsgruppenleiter, the municipal authorities, the mayor and the deputy mayor, they all took to their heels, government officials – all fled … When things began getting a bit lively in the early morning they crossed the Rhine.’ The Landgerichtspräsident or chief judge of Strasbourg was seen fleeing with a rucksack towards the Rhine. Vaterrodt had more sympathy in his case. ‘He was right. He had had to sign so many death warrants, summary sentences, that it was really terrible.’ The judge was an Alsatian born in Strasbourg, so he would have been the first to be tried or lynched.

Many German officers turned up with their French girlfriends, claiming
‘I’ve lost my unit.’
‘They were all deserters!’ Vaterrodt exploded. The most spectacular was Generalleutnant Schreiber, who arrived in Vaterrodt’s office and said: ‘My staff is down there.’ Vaterrodt looked out of the window. ‘There were about ten wonderful brand-new cars down there, with girls in them, staff auxiliaries, and over-fed officials, with a terrific amount of luggage which of course consisted mainly of food and other fine things.’ Schreiber announced that he intended to cross the Rhine. ‘Then at least I shall be safe for the moment.’

The liberation of Strasbourg by General Leclerc’s 2nd Armoured Division produced great joy in France, and for Leclerc it was the culmination of his promise at Koufra, in North Africa, that the
tricolore
would fly again from the cathedral. For them the liberation of Strasbourg and Alsace, taken by the Germans in 1871 and 1940, represented the final objective in France. Leclerc was admired and liked by senior American officers. The same could not be said of the mercurial and flamboyant General de Lattre de Tassigny, who believed it was his duty to keep complaining about the failure to supply enough uniforms and weaponry to his forces in the First French Army on the extreme southern flank. To be fair to him, he faced immense problems, integrating some 137,000
untrained and unruly members of the French Resistance into his army. De Gaulle wanted to start withdrawing colonial forces to make the First Army appear more ethnically French, and the North African and Senegalese colonial troops had suffered terribly in the cold of the Vosges mountains. In heavy snow, Lattre’s First Army had finally broken through the Belfort Gap to the Rhine just above the Swiss frontier.