by Gerald Astor
The renewed attack stalled under the vicious artillery and mortar fire after an ill-advised maneuver dismounted the soldiers from the protection of their half-tracks. The armored division CO, Maj. Gen. Lunsford E. Oliver, complained about the ravages upon his supply trains, to which Macon growled, “The road is about as open as we can get it. We can’t keep out the snipers.”
From his headquarters, Collins impatiently demanded results. Barton dispatched his reserve regiment, the 329th, toward another hamlet, Gurzenich. Held up mainly by the dense woods, the tree bursts created by big guns, and ubiquitous mines, the outfit finally broke into Gurzenich on the afternoon of 13 December. The following day, the 329th pressed on to Birgel, where an entire battalion surrendered. As it had for so many American organizations, the campaign to control the Huertgen sapped German strength and will.
The place had barely been seized before the Germans, perceiving a dangerous bulge in their lines at the very moment when they were readying themselves for the notorious thrust through the Ardennes to the southwest, mounted a strong counterattack. Temporarily, the line in Birgel broke, with the GIs out of bazooka ammunition to cope with enemy armor. Macon directed artillery fire to be dumped on the town’s approaches to prevent infantry from supporting the armor. He also scrounged four tanks from the 774th Tank Battalion to bolster the embattled infantrymen.
In the 329th Regiment, M Company Sgt. Ralph G. Neppell, as a machine gun squad leader, wiped out twenty soldiers on his own and forced an assault gun to retreat before a round severed one of his legs below the knee. Neppell dragged his wounded body into a position where he could continue to deploy his machine gun. He later received a Medal of Honor. Despite their determined attempts, the Germans could not retake Birgel.
Beyond Grosshau and Kleinhau lay the village of Bergstein, an objective consigned to the CCR of the 5th Armored Division. The major pieces of CCR consisted of the 47th Armored Infantry, the 10th Tank Battalion, and the 628th Tank Destroyer Battalion. Bob Herman, son of a Youngstown, Ohio, steelworker, had finished a year at Ohio University before being drafted. A field artillery trainee, he nevertheless went to the 628th TD Battalion, created from a former unit in the luckless 28th Division.
“I wasn’t given any personal training for combat,” recalled Herman, “but just listened to my sergeant tank destroyer commander. He seemed to be well trained and qualified, and most of the battalion had been training in the States for several years. In England, we were equipped with the M10 TD with a three-inch cannon. The TD also had an antiaircraft .50-caliber machine gun mounted on top of an open turret. I started as an assistant driver and then as a loader.
“Our battalion commander was the first one killed in combat, shortly after we participated in the breakout at Saint-Lô. The XO, Maj. William Gallagher, was named CO and stayed throughout the war. He was a good soldier who retired as a major general.
“I don’t believe any training could have prepared you for what was to be faced in that forest. The weather was abominable, cold rain, mixed with snow some of the time. We usually had food, which we carried, mostly ten-in-one rations, so we didn’t go hungry. The roads were muddy, hardly passable. The artillery, for example, was so intense, that not a tree was left with any branches on it.
“Our strength when we entered the Huertgen was nearly full, but at one time my company had only one TD operational, although a day later, seven out of fifteen were working. We had received the newer M36 with a 90mm gun just prior to the Huertgen. My own tank destroyer had a mechanical problem, and then, while we were trying to catch up with the rest of the battalion, we hit a mine, were disabled, and taken to the rear.
“However, C Company on 6 December knocked out five enemy tanks. The problem with the M36 was the open turret. Many casualties occurred from artillery air bursts or when exploding from hitting the trees. After this experience, the battalion modified all turrets, built an armored cover for them, which proved invaluable on a number of occasions. Our clothes were always wet and our socks, too. The cold wet socks were primarily responsible when I got a mild case of trench foot and went to a hospital near Liége.”
Once again, the village of Merode became the locus of action. In place of the 1st Division’s 26th Infantry, which lost 165 men while trying to capture the town, the 9th Division’s 39th Infantry was chosen for the task. General Craig drafted a precise if somewhat unusual maneuver aimed at the Merode Castle, an eighteenth-century building whose towers provided an eagle-eyed view of the town and vicinity, making the castle a strong point of the defense. A twenty-foot-wide moat and a single entrance made the place a tough nut to crack. Craig arranged for his 60th Infantry to serve as a departure base for the 2d Battalion of the 39th. That unit, under Lt. Frank L. Gunn, a veteran of the first tentative push along the southeastern fringes of the forest and into Germany back in September, would march abreast of the 60th before jumping off at a right angle toward the castle. The arrangement was the only possible way to advance the troops through the cramped confines of forest, clogged or impassable roads, and open ground studded with mines. There would be tank support supplied by the 3d Armored Division.
To ensure a clear pathway, Gunn boarded GIs from F Company’s 2d platoon along with engineers and 200 pounds of TNT on five tanks on the portion of the blacktop highway toward D’Horn, a hamlet between Jungersdorf and Merode that sat astride the railroad line from Aachen to Düren. The leader of the patrol was Lt. Mike Wolfson. The question was whether a railroad underpass at the edge of D’Horn had been destroyed. If so, the engineers would use dynamite to blow open a route through the debris. Wolfson and his troupe found the underpass intact and took up residence in a house to await their associates.
On 10 December, with VII Corps commander Collins observing from Craig’s headquarters, an intricate choreography unfolded, with elements of the 60th Regiment sweeping aside light resistance. As the Americans advanced at a better pace than anticipated, the 9th Division leader gave the signal for the forces under Gunn to start their assault. The men struck out according to the plan, and with their flank covered by the 60th Regiment soldiers, executed a right angle attack that carried them into D’Horn with little difficulty. Gunn and his riflemen buttoned down for the night in the village.
General Craig now directed Col. Van H. Bond, the CO of the 39th, to capture Merode Castle. Bond boasted that by nightfall he would have his command post set up in the castle, where Craig could visit. Bond’s 1st and 2d Battalions attacked from two different angles that would cross at the objective.
Artillery and small arms hammered hard at the attackers, but, unlike the case of the 1st Division soldiers in November, the Americans packed many more men and much more firepower into the effort. The GIs rebuffed counterattacks that had been so successful against the 26th Infantry. Intensive shelling punched huge holes in the castle and tumbled some of its walls. Still, with their bodies and blood, the GIs took possession, enabling Bond to fulfill his prophecy. Securing the town required hours of house-to-house fighting, but along with many enemy dead, 190 prisoners yielded to the 39th.
Frank Randall, the platoon leader replacement who joined B Company of the 39th Infantry in the forest, recalled, “Many of our captives were fourteen to fifteen years old, which told us something. My reaction was to call down curses on Hitler. The next morning, we continued the attack to relieve pressure on another company. I had eaten some potatoes from a pile in the basement of one of the houses and had diarrhea as we were getting ready to attack. I told the platoon sergeant to take the men to the attack position. Then I completely emptied my bowels and hurriedly went to the attack. Prior to the start, a man intercepted me with a letter to his wife. I censored it, signed it, and put it in my left shirt pocket.
“Remembering the Infantry School instruction oft repeated, ‘The men will not go if you are not in front to lead them, lieutenant,’ I passed through the formation and gave the ‘follow me’ signal. And so up the hill, my men took up firing on the objective. I turned my
back on the enemy position to signal them to increase the volume of fire. I turned back, took a few steps, and was hit in the chest and abdomen and went down on one knee. I jumped to get out of the line of fire and called to the platoon aid man that I was hit. I looked over on my right and saw the man who had given me the letter go down.
“I told the medic to treat him first. He replied, ‘I’m sorry, sir. He’s dead.’ My men were going to take the door off a house to evacuate me, but the aid man had sent someone for a litter, which was produced in a short time.
“We took the hill and the evacuation process began. The aid man had given me a shot of morphine, and soon I was in the battalion aid station. Because of profuse bleeding, they stripped me. The aid station sergeant removed everything from my pockets, including the letter now soaked with my blood, which was placed with all my worldly goods. At the regimental aid station, they gave me another shot of morphine, one of the chaplains anointed me and gave me a blessing, and I was on my way to the division clearing station, this time on the hood of a jeep.”
Medics administered more shots of morphine as Randall traveled on a litter atop a half-track until a Mobile Army Surgical Team (MAST; later, in Korea, MASH) operated on him. As the Germans continued to advance in the first days of the Battle of the Bulge, the Stolberg hospital, with Randall and other severely wounded patients, lay in the path of the enemy. The First Army surgeon ordered everyone except volunteers to leave, because, with capture imminent, he wanted American medical personnel to tend to the wounded who would die if moved. “Everyone, doctors, nurses, technicians, ward attendants, all volunteered, so the hospital CO said, ‘We all stay.’ Fortunately, Stolberg was not captured, and thanks to the courage of our medical personnel, we had treatment as usual.”
On a hot summer’s day, five months earlier, D Company from the 5th Armored’s 81st Tank Battalion, equipped with light tanks, had clattered ashore at Utah Beach. As a unit in CCB, the tankers followed the stampede through the Saint-Lô gap in the German lines, and in the dash through the French countryside on a single day rolled thirty-seven combat miles. Voo Doo Dog (the radio code name for the company), having paraded through Paris, engaged the enemy during September along the Siegfried Line. They spent most of October and November as reserves bivouacked in Luxembourg and Belgium.
On 10 December, along with the rest of CCB, D Company circled its vehicles in the vicinity of Kleinhau. Antiaircraft and American fighters drove off occasional marauding visitors from the Luftwaffe. The tactical experts, recognizing the limitations of light tanks against German armor and the enemy antitank weapons, mainly employed them against selective targets, like roadblocks, snipers, and nonbunkered machine gun nests, and for supply and evacuation of wounded.
Bob Miller, a gunner with the outfit, recalled moving out at dawn on 12 December to carry food, ammunition, and water to the forward troops. When the 2d Platoon tanks neared their destination, they were forced to detour off to the side to get around a disabled Sherman. A mine exploded under the third tank in line, and while a crew worked to extricate an unconscious GI, Pvt. Dominick Colangelo, the other two tanks slowly continued ahead. After depositing their cargo, the pair returned. Miller recalled, “They decided to pass the two knocked-out vehicles on the other side in hopes of avoiding the numerous mines. As Lt. Henry Potts [who had dismounted] guided his tank around, it too struck a mine, killing him and seriously wounded the driver, T/4 Peter Thauwald.” Shrapnel struck four of the tankers still laboring to free Colangelo. Among those who picked up a Purple Heart here was Gunner Miller. Another tank was abandoned, because it was too dangerous to attempt to cross what was obviously a heavily seeded minefield.
For nine days, Voo Doo Dog brought supplies forward and on the return trip evacuated the wounded. Infiltrating Germans continued to plant deadly mines. Lieutenant Henry V. Plass solved the problem for one run by shoving a broken-down engineer’s truck ahead of him as a makeshift minesweeper. The company’s 1st Platoon moved to Strass, where it could directly support the 330th Infantry while the two other platoons continued to perform supply and liaison missions. When CCB lost communications to the 330th Regiment, a tank commanded by Lt. Carlo Lombardi and driven by T/4 Roy Rusteberg scooted over a stretch of mine-infested ground and evaded a gauntlet of antitank weapons to bring its radio to the isolated GIs of the 330th.
The occupation of Gurzenich, opposite the city of Düren on the eastern side of the Roer, and Birgel by the 329th bagged more than 1,000 prisoners. The drive by elements of the 5th Armored and its partners in the 83d Division secured positions along the northern rim of their sector. To the south lay the other objectives—Bergheim, Winden, and other towns astride the Roer.
In the pathway was the well-defended village of Kufferath. A task force of tanks and armored infantry CCA passed through Gey, then fought its way into the settlement of Horm under heavy artillery fire and beset by mines. Fusillades of shells from the 34th Tank Battalion blasted the Horm defenders, smashing self-propelled 75mm and 150mm cannons along with antitank pieces.
A shell pierced the side of a tank commanded by Sgt. Wilmer Doty. The explosion blew Doty out of the vehicle. He climbed back into the burning tank to rescue his gunner, Cpl. Charles Fuller. Having dragged Fuller to safety, Doty again braved the flames to retrieve his driver. Two more rounds crashed into the crippled tank, killing the driver and seriously injuring Doty.
The onslaught by the Americans overwhelmed the resident German soldiers, who began to surrender. Infantrymen from the 83d took over handling the prisoners. The task force rumbled toward Kufferath, only to encounter another savage reception from antitank guns and artillery. B Company of the 34th lost five tanks in the duels but doggedly persisted with only three Shermans and a tank dozer toward Kufferath.
From the skies, a squadron of P-47 fighters hurled their thunderbolts at the Kufferath garrison, the troops in Bergheim, and enemy positions in the woods. The GIs from the 5th Armored besieged Kufferath from three sides. However, the resolute defenders kept up their fire, demolishing a number of the American tanks. Casualties accumulated, but the fighting intensified, making it difficult to spare men for carrying parties.
In the final assault on Kufferath, SSgt. Andrew Hovdestadt from the 46th Armored Infantry volunteered to lead combat patrols to kill or roust the defenders from houses in the town. During one excursion, an artillery shell burst near him. Although mortally wounded, he dragged himself to a protected position from which he urged his companions on, while attempting to succor other injured men before he succumbed.
The Americans swarmed into Kufferath, bagged ninety-eight prisoners, and counted 175 Germans dead or wounded and eleven antitank weapons destroyed. For five days they held on, until fresh forces from CCA reinforced or replaced them. From here the drive resumed toward Bergheim and one of its nearby enclaves, Schneidhausen.
The 5th Armored Division’s 71st Armored Field Artillery, as part of CCB, had spent the latter part of November and the first week of December in the vicinity of Aachen, laying down interdiction fire on the foe’s pillboxes. Forward observers for the 71st employed both L-4 single-engine airplanes and the M4 tank. Ralph Hendrickson, a cannoneer for an M7, the self-propelled tracked gun, had been drafted into the horse-drawn artillery before the attack on Pearl Harbor. As an original member of the 71st AFA, he had already witnessed combat during the second week of December, when he reached the Huertgen Forest near Grosshau. “Immediately after arriving in our gun position and our guns were laid to fire, I began to make a personal reconnaissance of the battery position. I took extreme care to look the place over good after I saw those bullet-riddled trees and dead bodies. I wasn’t about to step on a mine. While checking the area around the dead bodies, I noticed this dead GI sitting on a log with his right arm raised up over his head. His left arm was half raised, and his box of stationery was scattered on the ground. I felt sorry for him and his family, but the only thing I could do was pick up his stationery and secure it for Graves Registration. I
did this and protected it with his poncho. All the many other bodies were in a flat position.
“About the third day there, Graves Registration began to pick up bodies. They were not very careful with the bodies. They handled them like dead meat. They actually threw them in the back of a cargo truck and piled them like cordwood. They did all this while we watched. The sitting GI whom I had seen couldn’t be laid flat, so they sat him on top of the other bodies behind the driver. When the Graves Registration truck drove by my gun position, the bumps [in the roadway] made my dead friend’s upraised right arm wave to me. His right arm continued to wave as far as I could see when the truck was driving away. [The sight] has haunted me all of these years.”
German aircraft put in a rare appearance over the encampment of the 71st, bombing and strafing with minor damage, although nearby units of CCB counted eighteen casualties from the raid. Life for the artillerymen was more comfortable than what the infantry endured, and particularly the previous tenants of the turf. When they completed a firing mission, the crews retired to what official communications described as “log huts dug into the ground.” The battalion report described them as “fairly comfortable, warm, and splinterproof.” With the immediate field of battle advanced some miles, the artillerymen lived more comfortably than the previous residents. James Burrell, a T/5 in A Battery, noted that while some foxholes and dugouts had heavy log and dirt roofs, “not one hole was long or deep enough for us, so off came the tops, and we put in our own addition—namely, stoves made from five-gallon oilcans complete with Boche stovepipe and illumination in the form of flashlights or halftrack trouble lights rigged up with lengths of wire. We fired on targets of opportunity and laid down heavy barrages in preparation for the attacks. For the boys that were off duty during the day, there was the usual army time-passers, poker and blackjack games, just laying around and chewing the fat or snatching a little of those forty winks missed the night before while on that firing problem.”