by Gerald Astor
With its front line shortened to half that of September, the 9th Division prepared to advance toward Schmidt, a strategically located town, because its high ground overlooked the Roer and it served as a road hub. It was perhaps three miles beyond the Schill defenses, and the pathway to Schmidt ran through the Huertgen Forest.
The September offensive by the First Army, stopped with only meager gains, had cost both sides dearly. For the Germans, however, there was one major achievement; they had bought time to reorganize and to reinforce their defensive positions. That seems to have escaped the notice of the intelligence specialists. Major Houston, so prescient about the dams, estimated the German numbers at 5,000 (actually, the German strength was closer to 6,500, including some 1,500 in service or headquarters assignments), mainly drawn from home guard and replacement units. Houston described this as a poorly organized force marked by low morale but led by good officers.
Elsewhere, the increase in German resources was clear. Karl Wolf, with the 16th Infantry near Münsterbusch and west of Stolberg; recalled, “Just before midnight on October 3, the Germans launched the heaviest artillery barrage I was in during the war. Fortunately, we were in the pillbox [the battalion CP] and no direct hits occurred. I saw the report where regiment estimated between 3,000 and 4,000 artillery rounds were fired on our K Company position within a half hour. Following the shelling was an assault by German engineers and infantry carrying flamethrowers and demolition materials. They had four 88mm assault guns, two of which were carrying infantrymen in the assault force. Just a few nights earlier, we had layed [sic] antitank mines on the roads and crossroads in front of our position. One of the self-propelled guns was disabled by the mines. The other withdrew to where the other two had remained to deliver support fire. All three were eventually destroyed before the battle ended.
“The German infantry overran one pillbox that our men occupied. I remember getting messages from one of our platoons about being overrun and not being sure where our men were and where the Germans were. We requested support artillery fire from battalion to be brought down close to our positions, especially in the platoon area that had been overrun. Our regiment got the help of fourteen battalions of artillery to support us in repulsing the attack. We provided some help to our overrun platoon and drove the Germans out. I believe for a little while a couple of our men were actually held prisoners.
“Our losses were relatively light. Many German wounded and dead were found when morning came and we captured prisoners. That day we observed German vehicles picking up many more German wounded who had been caught in the open by our artillery.”
Although the counterattack against Wolf and his colleagues had been defeated, it should have been obvious that the Germans had no inclination to yield an inch of their home turf. The general in charge of the Huertgen troops had also made excellent use of the pause in the fighting. His soldiers labored on field fortifications, built log bunkers, dug foxholes, connected trenches, strung barbed wire, set up roadblocks, and laid minefields to add to the heavier positions constructed as part of the Westwall.
What intelligence specialist Houston failed to appreciate was that even allegedly inferior soldiers, if solidly ensconced in massive pillboxes and bunkers behind mines and barbed wire, could wreak havoc on any offensive, particularly if it could not be well supported by armor, artillery, or air cover. Houston further misled his clients with an unjustified hope: “It is felt that should a major breakthrough occur, or should several penetrations occur, the enemy will begin a withdrawal to the Rhine River, abandoning his Siegfried Line.” As the historian Charles MacDonald commented, “It was late in the Westwall fighting for this kind of thinking to persist.”
General Craig, who set up his headquarters inside the forest, could call on only two-thirds of his organization for the proposed advance. The 47th Infantry remained clinging to Schevenhutte on the northeastern edge of the woods. Only the 39th and 60th infantries were available, and they could be committed because the 4th Cavalry Group replaced them as the guardians of the flanks for the Schevenhutte garrison.
Major William B. Sullivan, the 2d Battalion executive officer of the 60th Regiment, later pointed out serious weakness in his regiment. “It [the 2d Battalion] was now the strongest battalion, being about 75 percent full strength. It was almost completely new and devoid of combat experience except for what very little it had gained in its passive defense of Monschau.” The personnel situation was a result of the battle after crossing the Meuse near Diant early in September. The combat there all but annihilated the 2d, which missed the 9th’s subsequent struggles to penetrate the Westwall. Sullivan added, “The other two battalions were considerably reduced in size, being only about 50 percent of full strength.”
Although much of the description of what happened during the first half of October is from the bloodless language of combat narratives and after-action reports, the stench of death and destruction permeates the words. The attack toward Schmidt, scheduled for 5 October, was to be preceded by a raid by eighty-four fighter-bombers from the IX Tactical Air Command. They were expected to dump their explosives on a trio of objectives. Their effort would be followed by a brief but intensive artillery barrage. As would happen so often during the entire Huertgen campaign, the weather obscured targets, and the airmen could not take off on schedule. A day later, at 10 A.M., the P-47 Thunderbolts roared in and dived on their targets, marked by red smoke, courtesy of American artillery.
It was almost noon when the two regiments moved out. They found the forest a mix of trees as tall as 100 feet, while in other areas, which had been cut down, replants had grown to ten feet. For the most part, however, the Americans struggled to see beyond a few yards, even at high noon. At night, a man could not see a trunk three feet away. Trails were nonexistent, except for a few narrow pathways artfully rendered useless by felled trees, and any tanks that accompanied the soldiers could move only along the firebreaks, Likewise strewn with obstacles, which permitted no lateral action. Firebreaks were also well covered by enemy guns. Division artillery provided 155mm self-propelled guns but only where they could maneuver for a clear shot and then withdraw quickly. In any event, the steel and concrete pillboxes shrugged off these projectiles.
The lineup for 6 October placed the 2d Battalion in the lead, attacking southeast with the aim of taking control of the road network about two miles southeast of Germeter. The 1st Battalion was to follow, mopping up, while the 3d Battalion protected the right flank. Sullivan described the attack: “The 2d Battalion jumped off with Company G on the right, F on the left, and E disposed to the left rear to protect the left flank, there being some 2,000 yards distance between the left flank of the battalion and the nearest friendly unit.
“Despite the fact that the personnel of the battalion were surprised at the peculiarities of the forest, amazed at the actions of the enemy, and confused by combat in general, they managed to advance as a unit 500 yards against resistance on the first day. Artillery, which was very active on both sides, was very effective [against the Americans], because of the fact that it was nearly all tree bursts. It was very seldom that a shell burst on the ground.” U.S. guns boomed an average of 5,000 rounds a day to support the GIs, but because of the proximity of the opposing troops, it was dangerous and difficult to lay shells directly on the defenders. The same held true when weather permitted the fighter-bombers to fly.
Sullivan reported, “Three tanks were available for use by the assault battalion but were not used because there was no way to get them up where they could be employed. There was a passable road which formed the left boundary, after the first day, but before it could be used, it had to be cleared of booby trap tank obstacles, which were defended by small arms from the other side of the road. The advance of the battalion had put in its possession a firebreak, which ran parallel to the front. The only possible effective use of the tanks was to get them up this avenue, from which they could poke into the trees far enough to get a shot at the enemy posit
ions.”
As Sullivan indicated, the foot soldiers met determined resistance and added little real estate—500 yards hardly satisfied the desires of Collins and Hodges. One company from the 2d Battalion of the 60th Infantry finished its first day with just two officers and sixty men still in condition to fight. After less than twelve hours, the company could muster only about one-third of its normal strength. The deadly tree bursts that Sullivan cited cost another battalion a hundred GIs.
On the night of 6 October, Sullivan and his fellow 2d Battalion heard the noises of axes chopping trees. “The morning of the 7th, when [the battalion] reinstituted the attack, they discovered the enemy had dug in deeply and covered their foxholes with logs. Artillery tree bursts failed to be effective against this type of emplacement, and artillery advantage now swung over to the enemy.” Americans were learning painful lessons about forest combat.
Small improvements in positions resulted from maneuvers, but a day later, an attack failed to gain any ground. “To eject the enemy from its log-covered fighting positions, a large-caliber, direct-fire weapon was needed. The battalion commander [Maj. Lawrence L. Decker] realized this and took measures to get his three tanks into position where they could bring effective fire on the emplacements. He dispatched the three tanks, accompanied by a platoon of engineers and a platoon of infantrymen, with the mission of deploying in the front line firebreak and assisting the attack. This party had to capture two roadblocks, dismantle them, and generally fight every inch of the way. They arrived in the firebreak late morning of the 8th.” Aided by this additional strength, the 2d Battalion overcame the most immediate obstacles to progress but continued to buck up against stiff and deadly resistance.
When American units as large as a company managed to slip through an opening and reach a clearing at the edge of the woods, they hesitated to proceed farther. Without the support of armor or artillery that could be directly brought to bear on defensive positions, any venture into open country would leave them exposed to withering storms of shot and shell. To enable these outfits to advance farther, engineers frantically hacked, hewed, and bulldozed routes to clear firebreaks and open trails in the woods. Until the engineers could complete their tasks, supply parties could only hand carry rations and ammunition, against the constant threats of mines, ambushes by infiltrating patrols, and the deadly tree bursts. It took three days to manufacture routes for tanks and tank destroyers adequate for the requisite armor to join the forward companies from the 39th and 60th.
The defenders, of course, concentrated on openings provided by firebreaks, knowing they acted as channels for the tanks and outfits such as the 899th Tank Destroyer Battalion. In one instance, the latter fired and then charged across a 1,000-yard firebreak six times before the TDs could cross into a position to pour point-blank fire into the defenders.
En route to the ultimate objective of Schmidt, the 39th Infantry set its sights on a series of villages, including the last major one before Schmidt, Vossenack. Units of the 39th succeeded in crossing a stream known as the Weisser Wehe and neared the town of Germeter, while a battalion from the 60th achieved a position overlooking the settlement of Richelskaul. In the face of counterattacks, the American commanders held fast to their ground on the outskirts of these objectives. Engineers worked furiously to open trails that would allow armor and self-propelled guns to move up and protect the foot soldiers assigned to traverse cleared fields before assaulting the hamlets. Aware of the situation, the Germans sharply counterattacked along the flank through the woods and drove off the engineers before they could complete their task. Now the advantage of the forest passed to the entrenched Americans. Tree bursts scourged the German legions, killing and maiming many.
With tanks and tank destroyers in the field, the 1st Battalion of the 60th, led by Lt. Col. Lee W. Chatfield, stormed out of the woods into Richelskaul. The wedge formation of tanks, commanded by SSgt. Ralph B. Bertier, unleashed machine gun and 75mm cannon fire on defenders hunkered down in cellars of the handful of buildings and foxholes. A courageous German lieutenant surfaced long enough to hit a tank with a panzerfaust, but the rocket did minor damage. A gunner swiveled his 75 around and cut the officer in half. Terrified Germans either surrendered or fled. The battalion counted almost 100 prisoners, fifty corpses, and a dozen panzerfausts still operable among the booty.
For the 1st Battalion of the 39th, led by Lt. Col. Oscar H. Thompson, which menaced Germeter, the results were mixed. Two rifle platoons from the outfit occupied a couple of buildings in Wittscheidt, a tiny enclave along the road between Germeter and the village of Huertgen to the northeast. Suddenly, from other houses, small-arms fire hit the hapless infantrymen and then artillery smote the GIs. German foot soldiers attacked and overwhelmed the two isolated platoons. Thompson’s people, bolstered by their tanks, retook Wittscheidt, but they found the body of only one American; the other forty-seven had vanished, presumably taken prisoner. Despite such losses, the American thrusts threatened to isolate Germeter, and, rather than allow the noose to tighten around its defenders, the Germans abandoned the village. It had taken five days to achieve the first major objective of the 9th Division offensive and cost more than 500 casualties.
On 10 October, from Richelskaul, the 39th Infantry, which had been slowed by rain, mines, roadblocks, and enemy fire, broke through for a surprising gain. Detouring around a manned pillbox, Company A plunged deeper into enemy country, capturing more than 100. Caution set in, and the outfit dug in, fearing they were too far out front and exposed. Unbeknownst to the GIs, they had actually outflanked a dozen pillboxes that were vulnerable to a rear attack. The opportunity passed, and other Americans advancing in the vicinity subsequently absorbed considerable punishment from those pillboxes.
The key to survival of the small salient hammered out by the two regiments was a road network that originated at a site known as Jaegerhaus (hunter’s cabin), previously a hub for the enemy but was one of the few prizes taken during the September campaign. The junction was about a mile and a half southwest of Germeter, and the Germans regarded it as a primary objective to repossess.
To prevent loss of the Jaegerhaus position, the 1st Battalion, in an effort to secure the crossroads, attempted to advance 200 yards and eliminate a quartet of pillboxes zeroed in on road traffic. The operation began on 11 October with three tanks and a similar number of tank destroyers advancing into a clearing in front of the fortifications. The blueprint called for the tanks and infantry to lay down heavy fire, while the tank destroyers rumbled close enough to blast at the embrasures of the redoubts from point-blank range. What may have sounded feasible on paper proved frightful in practice. As soon as the 9th Division soldiers exposed themselves, intense automatic weapon fusillades pinned them down. It was not until dark that they could retreat to safety. The lead tank staggered with a disabling hit. Adding to the ignominy, the Germans dragged the abandoned Sherman off, and it was later seen firing at American lines.
The 3d Battalion of the 39th, under Colonel Stumpf, pushed off in the direction of Vossenack as part of a combined attack with the 1st Battalion, while the 2d Battalion remained in position to protect the northern flank of the regiment. Shortly before jump-off time, K Company reached an assembly position only to have a shell smash into the command staff area. This event necessitated reorganization before the offensive could begin.
Under heavy mortar fire, L Company, with K trailing, crossed the road north of Germeter and sifted through the woods to the east. The lead company advanced to the outskirts of Vossenack, and a patrol actually slipped into the town itself. The GIs saw large numbers of German soldiers in town and quickly retreated. Equally alarming, Stumpf received word of an impending counterattack, but the night passed without any sustained contact.
The following day, confusion, as so often happened in the murky depths of the Huertgen, fogged in the 3d Battalion. Stumpf first readied himself for a morning charge into Vossenack in partnership with the 1st Battalion, which would be aided by t
anks. Told to stand fast, the perplexed commander then got word through a runner to retreat to the vicinity of Germeter.
The 39th’s 2d Battalion followed the 3d with the mission to protect its left flank. Captain Albert Karre, the S-3 of the battalion, later reported, “All during the day the 2d Battalion contacted enemy who were probing with strong combat patrols. The battalion was subjected to intense mortar and artillery fire. The enemy attack was estimated at two platoons on a roadblock held by G Company and destroyed a light tank supporting G Company but was driven off. The enemy lost approximately twenty men killed and wounded but was driven off.”
The following day there was a deluge of fire on the 2d Battalion, which protected so much frontage that its only reserve was a badly depleted ammunition and pioneer (A&P) platoon. Noted Karre, “The enemy attacked over a wide front of approximately 3,000 yards, employing an estimated reinforced German regiment. The attack was preceded by a tremendous artillery, mortar, and SP [self-propelled] barrage, which caused heavy casualties in all three companies and around the battalion CP and cutting all wire communications, leaving the battalion commander dependent entirely upon radio communication for contact with his companies.
“The enemy attacked with dogged determination in three waves of infantry, following closely on the heels of the barrage. The leading wave of enemy infantry was mowed down like ducks by E, F, and G Companies. However, the right flank attack of the enemy overpowered a road block. This attack [passed] completely around the left flank and reached a point twenty-five yards from the battalion CP before the A&P platoon could be employed. At this time, the A&P platoon, which was guarding the battalion CP, was immediately employed to stop the enemy attack in this sector. Drivers, radio operators, and one cook, who happened to be at the battalion CP, were also put into the fight to stop the tide of the German advance. In spite of this, one group of the enemy succeeded cutting the MSR [main supply route] and killed several medics who were evacuating wounded. The attack was stopped by the determined fight of the A&P platoon with heavy losses to the enemy.