The Bloody Forest: Battle for the Huertgen: September 1944–January 1945

by Gerald Astor

  “Colonel Kenan then taught me a powerful lesson in positive thinking, one I’ve never forgotten. In a calm, matter-of-fact voice, he said, ‘Wilson, ammo is on the way over now. I know what you’re up against, and I know you can and will continue to advance and take that line of defense.’ Without another word, he broke the connection.

  “I was furious. The guy back in his CP was asking the impossible. It was crazy. Then the bearers arrived with bandoliers of ammunition, and somehow we took on new life. Lieutenant Caldwell laid down some more artillery ahead of us and we moved out again. Just before dark, we knocked out the last German breastwork and cleaned out that defensive line.”

  Wilson and company took up abode in abandoned foxholes or dug new ones. While they had gained about 500 yards, their foe had no intention of a cessation of mortars and artillery during the night.

  In the northern reaches of the forest, the 47th Infantry, attached to the 1st Division, struck out from Gressenich, beyond Hamich toward the objectives of Nothberg and Bovenberger. Success would pinch the enemy between them and the 104th Division and 3d Armored. The 47th’s 3d Battalion received the assignment to clear out a nasty patch of enemy strongholds in the Bovenbergerwald.

  Having reconnoitered the turf ahead of them, on 20 November, the lead platoons of the 3d Battalion jumped off at 0800. Within minutes they entered the woods, and soon the thick canopy atop the trees shut out daylight. With visibility reduced to a few feet, the advance slowed. Two hours after the start of the journey, the Company K commanding officer, 1st Lt. Hubert A. Urban, at the end of his column of GIs, paused to kneel by his radio for the hourly position report to the battalion commander, Lt. Col. Donald C. Clayman. Urban glanced up from the radio to see a group of German soldiers standing a few feet off. He quickly grabbed his carbine and opened fire. Sharp exchanges erupted after the first shots. The enemy obviously had been surprised by the sudden appearance of the Americans. The 9th Division men rousted the Germans, but Urban realized that he could expect artillery shells on his outfit as soon as the Germans could notify their batteries.

  Company K lunged through the underbrush, and just as Urban foresaw, explosions rocked the ground behind them. The unit had hardly organized a defense against a counterattack when a column of Germans, unaware of their presence, marched into them. A fire-fight, accentuated by a well-placed machine gun, scattered the enemy, and more than 100 of them surrendered. Urban, concerned that the hasty, but necessary, rush of his K Company left the unit isolated, obtained permission for his people to dig in for the night.

  Patrols probed the adjacent territory, seeking to pinpoint the locations of friends or foes. One party from Company L attempted to reach Heistern, reportedly in the hands of the 16th Infantry. Instead, shells from tanks and self-propelled guns signaled the place either surrounded or occupied by Germans.

  The battalion A&P platoon swept the road to locate mines. To save time, instead of disarming them, the A&P men covered the mines with mess kits. Even in the dark these could be seen, and vehicles drove around them while bringing up supplies. Other soldiers laid field telephone wire along the road and by an alternate route through the woods. Sporadic mortar fire interrupted this activity, wounding the battalion communications officer and several of the linesmen. The loss of these specialists, plus the persistent rain, hampered communications throughout the remainder of the operation.

  During the night, orders from regiment directed Clayman to march north and seize the town of Hucheln. The 3d Battalion commander requested artillery fire to suppress resistance in the Heistern area. He was denied on the grounds that with men from the 1st Division’s 16th Regiment occupying the town, the barrage would endanger them. Having seen his people fired on from the locations claimed by the 16th Regiment, Clayman was dubious but unable to protest.

  At 0600, a patrol from Company L investigated the territory ahead and brought back valuable intelligence on the presence of enemy soldiers and vehicles. Artillery struck these defenders, and L Company overcame the resistance, nabbing some 200 prisoners. With Company I right behind, the Americans advanced, breaking out of the woods to a meadow that stretched 300 yards in front of the dairy known as Bovenberg Farm. It consisted of a collection of buildings mostly enclosed by an eight-foot-high stone wall with the main structure a two-and-a-half-story stone house. A shallow stream and a wire fence encased in brush crossed the meadow.

  The lead platoon, under SSgt. Raymond W. King, cautiously advanced into the open ground. Shots rang out from behind the fence, and the GIs hit the dirt to return fire. At the edge of the woods, a machine gun platoon from Company M doused the buildings with bullets while King’s men charged the fence line, routing the German squad posted there. But mortar fire fell upon the Company M emplacements, shutting down the machine guns even as the infantrymen rushed toward the stone wall. Furious ambuscades from those hidden in the buildings forced the Americans to retreat to the positions formerly held by the enemy at the fence line. They left about twenty dead just shy of the stone wall.

  The company commander advised Clayman of the situation and requested tanks. Although the armor platoon leader feared problems with mines embedded in the road and the thick mud of adjacent fields, he guided forward the Shermans. When they reached a point where they could see the action, enemy tanks in the woods by Heistern opened up, knocking out the lead pair of American tanks. Their companions scuttled back to the safety of the forest.

  A massive artillery concentration crashed down upon the woods, where the GIs of Company I frantically sought cover. Almost every round was a tree burst, hurling jagged slivers and fragments on the hapless troops huddled below. Chester Jordan, as a platoon leader with the unit, recalled, “We were walking through open woods and just walked smack dab into the Krauts. One of my BAR men fell almost immediately, and I grabbed his gun, gave the ammo to my runner, and started shooting up the woods. I really ran amok. I shot up Germans, trees, bushes, and anything that looked like it might hold a Kraut. I ran away from my ammunition, and when I finally noticed the fact, I discovered I was the only one shooting and I was all by myself.

  “Before I could run around to search for the platoon, artillery shells started falling all around. There was nothing to get under, so I lay down next to a small fir tree. I was lying on my back, looking at the treetops and praying. A shell hit the ground about fifty feet away, and it seemed like a minute after the explosion when a piece of shrapnel came whizzing through the air and struck the fir tree just above my body. The whole thing appeared to happen in slow motion. The eight-inch tree was cut almost half and started leaning slowly toward me and then rested on the ground. The butt of the tree stayed on the stump and I was not touched. It was a comfort to me to have anything over me during the rest of the shelling.

  “When the shells stopped falling, I slid out of my fir lean-to and started to walk back to where I had last seen a friendly face. I came to a cutover area and was about to go around it when a squad of Germans emerged from the other side of the clearing. They moved in single file, carrying their weapons behind their necks, as they were wont to do. As soon as they were in the clearing, they cut to my left and all came into my view. I put the BAR up against a tree, ready to shoot. Then a stroke of sanity hit me. The odds were against me getting all of them, but the odds of them getting all of me looked formidable. I didn’t put the safety on, but I stood very quiet.”

  During this period, Capt. Ralph E. Manuel, CO of I Company, observed less intensive fire in the meadow. He worked his way forward and organized a charge toward the buildings. From behind the walls of the dairy main house, barn, and other structures, machine guns and rifles slashed through the ranks, inflicting heavy casualties. Manuel split his forces, sending some to the rear of the German positions. From all sides, German tanks and antitank guns blasted those in the forest and the Americans trapped in the meadow. As the I Company captain neared the main building, Sergeant King was wounded. Manuel ordered him to report to Colonel Clayman and ask for artil
lery to shell the tanks and defenders, protected by a nearby railroad embankment.

  Manuel and a group of GIs sprinted forward until they enjoyed temporary safety in the lea of the cement wall around the buildings. While protected against small-arms fire, they soon contended with grenades tossed over the wall. In a last gasp assault, Manuel led a charge around to the rear of the enclosure and smacked head-on into a counterattack. The GIs, led by Manuel, burst past, plunged through a door in the wall, only to be taken prisoner by a much larger force.

  From his observation post, Clayman pleaded for the big guns to relieve his pinned-down troops, but 1st Division Artillery refused, insisting the target was too close to 16th Infantry soldiers. Clayman tried to raise Company L on the radio, and only after several tries did an operator respond with the news that Captain Manuel had either been killed or captured. A huge German railway gun rolled down the nearby track and heaped further misery onto the 3d Battalion’s rapidly diminishing numbers. It departed after ten minutes, and later in the day American planes destroyed the piece.

  Lieutenant Gael Frazier, the exec of Company L, arrived at the dugout serving as the battalion observation post. He told Clayman he was the only officer left, and the company itself was down to forty men. With the artillery forward observer missing and his mortar counterpart dead, Frazier suggested another effort by American tanks. Clayman summoned the leader of the attached tank platoon, who, according to the battalion commander, was “completely shaken and incoherent.” When ordered to take his tanks to the farm, “the officer became hysterical,” and within a few minutes he was wounded.

  Clayman personally went in search of Company I and found the unit badly damaged by the constant tree bursts and shells from tanks. He radioed regiment, which agreed to a disengagement of what remained from the two companies. The battalion executive officer, Maj. William L. Tanner, brought forward the armored halftrack prime movers for an antitank platoon, and a crew of cooks and clerks worked to evacuate the wounded behind smoke concentration under the guidance of Tanner. On the battlefield, the litter bearers encountered German medics picking up wounded GIs. The Americans relieved the enemy of their burdens and both sides retired to their own lines.

  Clayman dispatched Red Phillips, the heavy weapons company commander, to explore the right flank and find the reason so much fire issued from the direction. Phillips, who had the palm of his hand torn off during the day by a shell from a high velocity gun while he rode in a jeep, could not locate Americans where the plan specified. When he dropped back to the rear, he discovered the adjacent battalion. Its commander explained that he never received an order to attack, but instead had been shifted south to reinforce the 1st Division soldiers still battling for Heistern. Unfortunately, word of the changes in the script never went to the unlucky 3d Battalion of the 47th, whose casualty list numbered twenty officers and 335 enlisted men killed, wounded, or missing. The total exceeded that of the regiment throughout all its campaigns that began in North Africa.

  Intelligence specialists, men from the A&P platoon, and antitank crewmen manned a weak but organized line against an expected counterattack. Apparently, the day’s action had also exhausted the enemy, for their expected response never happened. Subsequently, when he analyzed what had happened, Red Phillips credited the leadership and reactions of Company K for staving off disaster. However, he attributed the failures at Bovenberg Farm to poor coordination between the 1st Infantry Division and the 47th Regimental Combat Team. In addition, he noted a common weakness, the lack of experience among tankers and foot soldiers working with one another.

  While still in reserve for the Huertgen campaign, the 18th Regiment of the 1st Division played host to a major and several other Rangers. “They had lost a lot of men,” said Eames, “and they had come to our company for replacements (like a press gang in the days of the old sailing ships). After conferences with our company commander, we were all called out and lined up. As we stood in ranks, the Ranger commander went down and said, ‘You, and you, and you and you,’ to every other man in the front row. I was the odd man out, the men on either side of me were picked to join the Rangers, even though they had no knowledge of demolitions. The Rangers were an interesting bunch; they all had packet charges of high explosives hanging around their waists, while on their helmets, they had detonator charges all taped on, with lengths of fuses wrapped around the helmets. They were a very ‘edgy’ bunch and couldn’t sit still. I was glad I wasn’t shanghaied into that outfit.”

  Eames had escaped the hazards of the Rangers, but his regiment deployed toward Langerwehe, north of the fighting for Hamich. He recalled, “The afternoon of 20 November, word was passed down that we were going to ‘kick off’ in a frontal attack on the German positions at 0630 the following day. We waited in silent anticipation. That night, E. J. smashed his glasses so that he would not have to go. He was dutifully sent back to the rear for new ones, as he could not see well. Here and there, a soldier would shoot himself in the foot, so that he would not have to go. Foot wounds were highly suspect when they were inflicted with a bullet, and the threat of court-martial hung over the recipient. However, there were many such cases anyway.”

  At dawn the following day, following a bombardment into the woods, Eames and his squad, still shy two of the normal complement, gained a hilltop position looking northeast toward Langerwehe. “Beyond us was a ridge, and our orders were to take it in a frontal attack. Beyond that ridge was another one where the German front line was dug in. The Germans were anticipating us, and the ridge we were ordered to capture was being heavily pounded by German mortar and artillery fire. I had never seen such concentrated fire on one position before. We stood and watched the firs go up in shell fire. There was just no way that hill could be captured; it was living death to go out there. Ignoring the order to attack it, our outfit just stayed where they were. I wondered what in the world would happen, and where we could go from here.

  “The squad leaders called for a conference to decide what to do. They and members of the platoon huddled in a forest clearing debating the next move. I stood on the outside edge of this, having no voice in what was to be done anyway. I suddenly was overcome with the feeling that something terrible was going to happen, and since I wasn’t needed, I headed for a depression in the ground about fifty feet away to take cover. I had just reached it and was starting to squat down when there was a terrific explosion behind me. I was knocked flat on my face. At the same moment, I felt a burning piece of red hot shrapnel tear a hole in my upper left arm. It felt like a burning brand. Another piece of shrapnel grazed the right side of my helmet, and I was hit a blow by something on the right side of my combat boot.

  “Looking back, I saw chaos in the platoon huddle. The shell had exploded right where I had been standing a few moments before. Most of the group was scattered about on the ground, screaming and yelling and covered with blood. Some of them had been killed outright. Duane Corbin had been in the middle of the men. His new ammunition carrier, who had been assigned to him only three days, absorbed the blast and was killed instantly. Duane was hit above the left knee by a large piece of shrapnel and in both arms as well. The wounded were yelling for medics. ‘Ole Moe,’ the squad leader, was unhurt. He came running up to me and said, ‘Eames, you’ve got to follow me out of here; the platoon is all shot up, and we will need everybody we can get to hold the line.’ So I followed him past the wounded. Men, all covered with blood, lying on the ground, cried out to me and clutched my pant legs as I went by. In this split instant, I was faced with multiple factors. Moe didn’t know that I had been struck in the arm, and I could have gone back to the hospital for treatment. I decided to follow his orders and left the wounded behind.

  “Not being able to help those screaming, bleeding men gave me a sense of guilt that took many years to overcome, as I elected to put my duty first. Out of all this, the Germans had decided for us what we were going to do next. Our plans to attack that ridge were ended. Duane was carried out on a str
etcher, and the other men were eventually evacuated. Moe and I and my second scout, Patrick McBride, were joined by Lieutenant Stephenson in a position more to the east of where the shell blast had occurred. We all started digging slit trenches. This was a terrible task, as there was shale rock right under the surface, and we literally had to pick our way through it in order to get any shelter.

  “Moe scattered sulfa powder on my arm wound and tied a bandage around it. Then we waited for night. When things finally quieted down, I wearily took my pack out and pulled out a can of cold C-rations hash. I looked at it and looked again. It had a large shrapnel hole in it from that morning’s shell blast. That can of hash had stopped that big piece of shrapnel. If it hadn’t, I could have ended up a paraplegic, as it would have hit me in the spine. A lowly can of C rations, which I hated to the extreme, had saved my life.

  “Stevie [the lieutenant] spent much of the night with me in the slit trench. Somehow, he looked to me a lot like our new commanding general, Clift Andrus, who had been the brigadier in charge of artillery for the division. Stevie and I talked about the war for a long time. Water was seeping rapidly into the trench. I finally fell asleep with my arms over the rifle, which lay crossway across the top of the trench. In the morning, when I awoke, I found myself frozen in with a sheet of ice across my chest, which I had to break off and throw out of the hole. We had to stay in our holes because of the constant tree bursts caused by the constant German artillery fire. So we sat there, cold, frozen, and miserable.”

  Into the maw of the Huertgen moved other elements of the 8th Division. Arthur Wagenseil, a radio operator assigned to the 56th Field Artillery, was the son of a German immigrant. He had an uncle who wrote letters with the greeting “Heil, Hitler,” which considerably angered Wagenseil’s father. Wagenseil had started his career through the Citizens Military Training Program, working with French 75s that used World War I shells. He had arrived in France on 3 July and commented, “The roads were slippery, very muddy, very slick. Several times we had to manhandle the guns around the turns until we reached our position near midnight. It was pitch black, you couldn’t see a thing. We unlimbered the guns and started to lay them for action. Word got out, ‘Watch for mines,’ as though you could see anything. Luckily, we managed to follow in the other guys’ footsteps and suffered no casualties.