If You Survive

by George Wilson

  The terrain was becoming more and more familiar to me, and I realized we were retracing the route we had taken when chasing the Germans over four months before, in September. We learned that our overall mission was to penetrate the Siegfried Line at the very same spot we’d broken through before. We had first taken this sector in the middle of September, 1944; then the Twenty-second Infantry had moved north to the Bullingen area. From there, in November, we moved north again to the terrible Hürtgen, and then south, to Luxembourg and what turned out to be the Bulge. Now, in late January, 1945, we were headed north in December, again.

  While the campaign maps would show that the Twenty-second Infantry did indeed, by some curious coincidence, revisit the same sector of the Siegfried several campaigns apart, in truth it was nowhere near the same Twenty-second Infantry. Most of the present Twenty-second were replacements; of the thirty-odd officers originally in the Second Battalion, I believe only three remained active—Captain Arthur Newcomb, Lieutenant Lee Lloyd, and myself. All the others had been killed or wounded. In addition, we had lost many replacement officers over the last five months.

  We were on the same winding country roads through the lovely town of Houffalize on the way to Saint Vith. Back in September, Saint Vith had been a very charming little farming town left unmolested by the Germans, who had not tried at all to defend it. The only signs of war had been a few scars on buildings from stray rifle bullets.

  I had been aware of the heavy fighting there during the Bulge, but I still was not prepared for my next view of the town. Saint Vith was in an open valley, and from the approaches of its southern heights we got a clear view of its total ruin. All we could see were the jagged outlines of the shattered walls that had once been buildings. It was like a nightmarish surrealistic painting. Nothing was undamaged; there was no sign of life.

  This time around the Germans had made innocent little Saint Vith a key supply and communications center, and as soon as the skies cleared our own bombers had made it a prime target. I hoped that if any natives had still been in town they had had some warning. Nothing could have survived that bombing. In one area of perhaps two hundred square feet, for instance, I counted five huge bomb craters with rubble all around. I was sickened by the destruction.

  Somewhere among all the debris some GI had found a naked mannequin and placed it alongside the road, where it stood out starkly, ghoulishly. The humor might have been a little sick, but it certainly was a diversion wild enough to cling to the memory.

  Other units of the Army had already driven the Krauts back into the Siegfried pillboxes, so we didn’t have to worry about ambush as we rolled along the winding roads from Saint Vith in Belgium across the German border into the town of Bleialf. This was something of an excursion compared to my small, motorized combat team that had probed the same paths in September, not knowing what the next turn in the road would bring and not even knowing exactly where the Siegfried was.

  One could not help reflecting on the battles we had fought in the same area in September, 1944. We also wondered how many lives had been lost for what appeared to be no gain after almost five months of hell. How far could we have gone if allowed to attack back then? It is easy to second-guess other people’s decisions, but the men responsible for the big decisions had a lot to worry about before and after any major campaign.

  There was also a big difference in the roads themselves, for now they were solid with ice and snow. The retreating Germans had not had time to plow snow. Their tanks and trucks had just pushed ahead as fast as they could, and there was a six-inch base of ice and compacted snow.

  Our tanks could negotiate anything but the steepest hills and sharpest curves, and one such obstacle came just east of the hamlet of Buchet, very close to the Siegfried. The rubber treads and steel cleats of the tanks could not get enough traction on the steep inclines and could not make the sharp turns because in changing direction one tread was braked to become a stationary pivot while the other tread kept moving. The trouble was that the pivot kept sliding on the ice.

  The engineers had tried setting off primer cord explosives to break up the ice, but all that did was leave small burn marks. They then sent out a call for extra manpower to dig corrugations that would aid traction, and F Company was elected, since we were in reserve. I was told to have my men use their entrenching shovels to chop out small grooves or ditches across the road about every foot of the way. This particular hill was over a half mile long, so we were out there hacking away all night.

  Every now and then we had to take cover against Nebelwerfer shells screaming overhead; but the worst discomfort, aside from fatigue and the cold, was the ice that kept getting chipped up into our faces and the occasional hitting of one’s own foot or shin with a shovel. It was a very tough night for us, but at least we had the satisfaction of seeing the tanks’ tracks biting into the ice trenches and pulling them up that hill before dawn. We were given the next day off, away from the fighting, and we stayed in reserve slightly to the rear.

  The Twenty-second Infantry, with its First and Third Battalions leading the attack, once again sliced through the Siegfried Line at the same spot it had before—just east of Buchet and slightly north of Brandscheid. The infantry advanced by fire and movement supported by artillery and the fire of tanks, and with the use of hand grenades and flamethrowers when the men got close enough. Some pillboxes had grenades dropped down their smokestacks; others had their apertures blasted by flamethrowers. At least one was plowed under by a bulldozing tank. The Germans never should have started this business. We proved once again that fortifications can be taken.

  The Second Battalion moved on through our First and Third battalions and headed southeast, going into defensive position east of the fortified village of Brandscheid. This time, in contrast to its frustrating fight in September, the Third Battalion swept right into Brandscheid and took many of the pillboxes from the rear.

  At that, Brandscheid was not a joyride for the Third Battalion, for even after they had taken the town and were being relieved after dark by a battalion from the Ninetieth Division, they were hit by a strong counterattack. The Germans swarmed in on top of the normal confusion of men trading places, and soon hand-to-hand combat was taking place in the darkness, with some Americans being killed by others. For a while our troops were afraid to move, but after a time the enemy was sorted out and driven back.

  Next day the First and Second battalions continued the attack eastward toward Sellericher-hohe. Soon we came to the edge of some woods and looked out on a valley and hillside that brought back a frightening recollection to a few of us. This was the place where the German artillery had massacred a battalion back in September. We had been up on the hill on what was now our left front, and we’d been helpless spectators in grandstand seats as the attack battalion had come out of those very woods and swept the Germans before them in what looked like a classic exercise in tank-infantry support. It wasn’t until they’d gotten way out into the open that the Germans brought down deadly barrages of artillery that tore the attackers apart and finally sent them in stampede back to the woods.

  To cross the same valley where so many had been casualties that September wasn’t a pleasant prospect, and I was glad that most of our people didn’t know its history. We certainly were forewarned, however, and we made sure our men were well spread out and alert to incoming Kraut shells. This time the wet slush and mud prevented us from taking any tanks along, and we were therefore less of a target in the open. We had also heavily shelled the hills ahead before we attacked.

  We did run into some well-entrenched Kraut infantry, but with the help of our artillery we were able to overrun them, and we made quick work of taking Sellericher-hohe and its roads and ridges.

  Lieutenant Gesner, the OSS castoff, really distinguished himself as a good, tough infantryman. He was all over the place, moving his platoon. I saw him using three different weapons—a carbine, an M-l rifle, and a Thompson .45-caliber submachine gun. He seemed to be f
iring a lot more than most officers, and instead of stopping to reload he’d trade guns with one of his men or pick up a fallen man’s weapon. They all thought he was great. One time when he ran out of ammo at the edge of a trench he jumped in and began to club a German with his rifle butt. The poor German quickly threw his hands up.

  * * *

  While at Sellericher-hohe we ran into and were victimized by one of the major defects in the Army’s generally reliable system of rank and command. The man with the higher rank always gets the nod over one with lower rank, with absolutely no regard for qualifications. This assumes that all promotions are fair and deserved, that all majors are better than all captains, that captains better than first lieutenants, and so on. This procedure is partly excusable in the sense that there’s really no way of knowing which man is better qualified—until he’s tested.

  The worst part of this system, ironically, was the end to which the entire army effort was pointed, combat itself. In combat, which is what the army is supposed to be about, the testing was quick and conclusive. Yet those who qualified—yes, even survived to be useful—were not quickly promoted, even when there were existing vacancies in rank. Thus Captain Newcomb, who was serving so beautifully as battalion exec., which position called for a major, was always in danger of being bumped by an inexperienced new major. This sort of injustice was legion among combat officers, but complaints about it are not the petty griping they may seem; experience was a matter of life and death in combat.

  Anyway, the problem struck us at this time. The Army had lost so many higher-ranking officers in the Hürtgen and in the Bulge that personnel officers scoured the corps of rear echelon and garrison officers and shipped them to the front as infantry replacements instead of promoting qualified men already doing the jobs. This is not to imply the new men were not good people; they simply were not experienced, and most of them were deeply embarrassed and uncomfortable at these circumstances beyond their control.

  So Captain Newcomb was replaced by a major and sent to take command of F Company, and I was reduced to company executive officer which forced Lieutenant Lee Lloyd down to platoon leader. Everyone was unhappy, particularly Lieutenant Colonel Kenan, who was not responsible for the assignments but had to live with their results. But it was a reunion of sorts, for Newcomb, Lloyd, and myself; we’d all been together in the old E Company.

  Captain Newcomb was very quiet when he arrived to take over command of F. He was the only D day officer left in Second Battalion, and he had long since deserved a majority. Lloyd and I were a little depressed. In fairness, it is probable that those people who should have been pushing our promotions had been too busy, yet the memory of Colonel Lanham’s words, “If you survive, I’ll promote you,” was beginning to irritate.

  From Sellericher-hohe, Second Battalion’s attack continued eastward, with one of the rifle companies drawing the nasty job of taking Hill 553 (hills were named for their elevation). This hill was directly in the battalion’s path to both Obermehlen and Niedermehlen, and from its height the Germans could control with artillery all the approaches to both towns. In addition to elevation, the Germans also had the advantage of concealment in the two sizable patches of woods near the crest.

  A few hours before dawn, our attack company went up the open slopes of Hill 553 in full darkness and was lucky enough to surprise the defenders and rout them. Before there was enough light for the company to completely set up their defenses, the Krauts struck back in a furious counterattack led by bellowing SS troops. Our men were quickly thrown back off the hill, though most of them made it back to where they’d started.

  This misadventure was no fun for the attack company, and it turned out to be even less fun for us, because Captain Newcomb was called to battalion headquarters and ordered to retake Hill 553 at once, in broad daylight. The advance just had to continue, and it couldn’t unless we had that hill. Colonel Kenan gave him the use of tanks and tank destroyers but said they’d have to stay on the road because the ground was thawing and the heavy tanks and tank destroyers (TD) might get mired in the mush.

  Captain Newcomb asked me to go with him to reconnoiter possible approaches, and the two of us walked several hundred yards southeastward along the road from Sellericher-hohe to Niedermehlen. The uphill side of the road was thickly lined with trees, and the banks were high; we were able to move about easily behind this cover, from which we had a good view of Hill 553 and its surroundings. From our concealment we used field glasses to study 553 and its patches of woods from a distance of about a thousand yards.

  After a while Captain Newcomb, the old pro at about twenty-seven, veteran of every battle since D day, turned to me and said, “This looks like the place to jump off from. We can move the tanks and TDs along this road and use them to give us support fire.”

  We discussed using heavy barrages of artillery but decided to use the direct fire of tanks and TDs as the primary weapon, with the artillery in support. The other attack company had told us about the formidable log bunkers up there, and we figured low-line direct fire would be more effective.

  We brought our men up against the high bank of the road out of sight of the enemy and lined up the tanks and TDs along the flat stretches, giving them specific target areas in the patches of woods. They would be firing directly over the heads of our advancing men, and they’d use high-explosive shells to keep the Germans under cover while peppering the area with their 30-caliber and 50-caliber machine guns. The artillery FO was also with us, and he had the same targets.

  Captain Newcomb then had the men spread out widely, and he personally led them out onto the open hill slope as I directed the tanks and TDs to commence firing. The only problem in the beginning was the stunning shock waves from the 75mm and 90mm rifles of the armor as the men were still close in. Many of the men had to sling their rifles so they could get both hands up over their ears. The rolling thunder of the big guns made it impossible to tell whether the enemy was firing back; I could not see any evidence of incoming artillery.

  With Captain Newcomb in the center and the platoon leaders and their platoons spread out to his left and right and behind him, the attack moved in orderly fashion with everyone walking very fast. I was coordinating the whole show. The crucial decision, for which I was already tensing though I had a few minutes yet, was when to lift the straight-line, overhead fire of the tanks and TDs. Artillery was also laying down an intense barrage on the hilltop, but its shells arced in with plenty of clearance of the ground troops and could be lifted later.

  The tough decision was when to lift the 75s and 90s. If I stopped the firing too soon, the Germans would rush out of their bunkers and blast our men when they were exposed on the open slope. If I waited too long, I might wipe out my men from the rear. I was sweating, but at least I could clearly see the men and the shell bursts of our 75s and 90s. I watched closely through my binoculars as the advance continued, and I knew the men were scared to death hearing their own shells whip a few feet over their heads while waiting for the enemy to open up.

  All I could do was watch and worry. It was the first time I’d directed that kind of fire, and I could only hope this was not the first time the armor had done it. I also knew that short rounds cropped up occasionally, and I gave a fleeting worried thought to the workers back in the States who had packed the shell cases. Now and then I put down my field glasses and checked the men directly because I didn’t want the magnification to make me think they were closer to the top than they actually were.

  When I finally gave the command to fire, the barrage was extremely intense and accurate, giving us exactly what we wanted. The Krauts could not come out in that awful blasting; they must have been terrified, strained to the limit of their nerves. Our men continued to walk rapidly up the slope, and I knew they were not getting any return fire because none of them hit the ground.

  My moment was almost at hand, and I watched closely through my field glasses. When they seemed to be only a hundred yards from the edge of the
woods I couldn’t hold out any longer, and I signaled the tanks and TDs to cease firing. The artillery FO then raised his range slightly to clear our men as they reached the edge of the woods.

  As they got near the bunkers the infantry was firing from the hip. Most of the Germans were so shaken that they stayed in their shelters. They offered almost no resistance as our men moved in and captured them. Their SS commander tried to get them to fight but was unsuccessful.

  I made my way quickly up the hill, and when I arrived a few minutes later everything was completely in our hands and our boys were jubilant. German prisoners were being led out, along with an arrogant SS officer in full dress uniform and long coat. He was mad as hell, and I only wished I could understand his German sputtering.

  Captain Newcomb was busy setting up our new defense, so I took over the care of the wounded, of which there were only two. Both were given some first aid. They were then able to walk back to the aid station on their own. Remarkably enough, only a few of the Germans were wounded, a testament to the quality of their bunkers.

  The sides of those dugouts went down about four feet into the ground and stuck up another two feet, with the dirt from the excavation being piled against the front and on the roof. The walls were logs about fifteen inches thick, and they could take anything but a direct hit. The entrance was in the back, and in front were machine gun trenches and communication trenches. Inside, the walls were lined with bunk beds, enough to accommodate eight men comfortably, twelve in a pinch.

  The attack had been an absolute classic, worthy of any textbook on tactics. The advance had been almost a thousand yards uphill across a wide-open slope, with close overhead fire support, against a strongly entrenched defender. It was my first experience in this kind of precision attack, and I’m not so sure I would have thought of the correct solution all on my own. I hated to think of the losses we might have had if a green company commander had had the job. I marveled at the savvy of Captain Newcomb, and while I was as disgusted as he with his demotion, I had to admit it probably had saved a good many lives.