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

by Gerald Astor

  Hendrickson remarked that because some congressmen had received mail from mothers about the lack of correspondence from their sons in combat, “a direct order came down that we had to write home regardless of whether it killed us or not. The ink in our pens was frozen.”

  The 71st AFA had supported the attack by units of CCB coordinated with the 83d Division, aimed at eliminating the Germans from a sector extending from Kleinhau to Winden on the Roer River. While CCB bogged down, the tactical air force dispatched P-47s and P-38s to blast a quarry, a German strong point already a focus of attention from a TOT. The objective finally yielded, after a mad dash across open ground by tanks carrying GIs surprised the Germans in the quarry. The wall of resistance to CCB cracked, and troops from CCB on 16 December occupied the high ground overlooking the Roer River towns of Winden, Untermaubach, and Undingen.

  For the task of capturing the major dams, the Schwammenauel and Urft, the First Army chose the latest arrivals to its V Corps, the 78th Infantry Division, which came to the forest with no previous combat experience. Major General Edwin P. Parker, Jr., CO of the “Lightning” Division, expressed some concern about the responsibilities entrusted to his combat novices, but Courtney Hodges dismissed his anxieties, asserting it had been “proven time and time again that our training methods in the United States were not only correct but completely adequate to defeat the Boche.” Like a number of other outfits, the division, activated in August 1942, had shipped most of its original complement to France as replacements for the first combat units in Europe. When it came to the Huertgen, many of its members were relatively new to the infantry. A large number were drawn from the now-folded Army Specialized Training Program, which sent men in uniform to college to study languages and engineering. Others carried M1s after duty in the Air Corps, which reduced its flight cadet program.

  On 13 December, as a slushy snow covered the ground amid frigid temperatures, the GIs of the 78th’s 310th Infantry climbed out of their foxholes and headed for the first objective, Rollesbroich. Fog concealed the Americans until someone tripped a mine and then faint rays of sun pierced the mist, silhouetting GIs for the benefit of German gunners.

  According to Adrian E. Sumerlin, of Headquarters Company in the 3d Battalion, “Some of the men froze when they came under fire and couldn’t get up and move forward. Lieutenant Colonel [Harry] Lutz, a Michigan State graduate and the 310th’s 3d Battalion CO, all six feet six inches of him walked by one man and said, ‘What’s the matter, son? You pinned down?’ The man looked up at him and jumped up and charged forward.

  “As the battalion entered the edge of the village, a sniper firing from a large house wounded some of our men. The colonel grabbed a rifle from a nearby soldier, charged the house, kicked the door open, and killed the sniper. Then he continued through the village, clearing out snipers until the village was secure.” Although the initiation to battle included a fierce house-to-house firefight, the inexperienced foot soldiers of the 310th captured Rollesbroich with limited losses. On their right flank, the 309th Infantry took Simmerath. However, the 78th now faced its most formidable challenge. The village of Kesternich, perched atop a high ridge overlooking the Roer, controlled a southern approach to the bloody prize of Schmidt. A postmortem analysis reported, “Visual reconnaissance over the battle area was limited due to a dense fog. Observation of Kesternich, the battalion objective, was mostly confined to a map study.” Circumstances were propitious for fulfilling General Parker’s worst fears.

  The battle for Kesternich began with the 2d Battalion of the 309th approaching the town from the northwest. F Company had hardly jumped off before the GIs encountered a thick girdle of wood-encased mines, whose explosions alerted German gunners. Mortars crashed down on the infantrymen trapped in the field, killing and maiming many not already hurt from the mines.

  Sergeant William Ryan, a squad leader, recalled, “It was supposed to be a secret and surprise attack on German troops. I was in the file on the left side of the road. There was no order to ‘lock and load’ so our rifles were empty.” This was a precaution taken to avoid alerting the enemy through accidental discharge of a weapon. “The order came to ‘fix bayonets,’ and we started moving forward. I never did hear a command to load the rifles. Shortly after, ahead and to the left front, the sky began to be lit by German flares.

  “Somewhere in a field to the left, I could hear cries for help. I remember thinking to myself that the flares indicated the ‘surprise’ was gone, and I thought ‘into that hell walked the 200’ [Company F], and I asked God to protect me.

  “First there was the darkness and then a flare and a short period of dark followed by the light of the next flare. As we approached a stone bridge, I could see ahead, perhaps fifty yards, a large dark building, and just beyond it the road began a gentle curve to the left. I remember thinking that this spot has got to be zeroed in. It looked mighty dangerous, so I called back to the men behind me, ‘Spread out. I think we’re going to be hit.’” Ryan, at this moment on his own, put a clip of ammunition in his rifle.

  “Shortly thereafter, as I continued on the road, something caused me to look back. I do not remember hearing any noise or explosions, but in the dark between flares I could see what looked like a series of balls of fire, which seemed to walk down the road between the two files of men. This was when the Germans opened up with mortar fire, and it took out a lot of Company F men as killed and wounded.

  “I moved to my left off the road, around the back of the building. I do not know how many were with me, but to the rear of the building, there seemed to be a high mound. We moved forward across the top and entered into a field. I was advancing in a minefield. The ground was frozen and iced up and partially swept clean of snow. I saw a three-prong fuse sticking out of the ground. I was about to avoid it, when off to my right, perhaps thirty yards, I saw a flash of fire about knee high, to the immediate front of three GIs from my company. They had bunched up, probably accidentally, and the flash may have been an 88 that caught them.

  “I was distracted as a large ‘T’ whipped toward me like a boomerang. It was the whole arm with the rifle held at the balance by one of the three men. In that fraction of a second, my right foot caught the fuse, and the explosion messed up my right foot and leg. My left leg was also damaged with puncture wounds.

  “Both my legs were [now] bare, the long underwear and pant legs were gone up to my crotch. I could readily see the condition of my legs. I did not need to give myself any first aid, as the right leg did not bleed at all, and the blood from the puncture wounds on my left leg seemed to coagulate or freeze. I felt no sense of panic nor did I have any pain.

  “I know the three men on my right were alive for quite some time, as I talked to them about medics coming to help us. I do not think they really knew how bad they were hit, and they did not seem to be in any pain. After an hour or so, I did not receive any more responses.”

  Ryan lay there for hours, while other soldiers, including his assistant, who spoke with him briefly, passed him by. Almost at dusk, having been on the field for many hours, the sergeant convinced a Company F soldier to summon help for the wounded. Whether or not he delivered the message, Ryan spent the night lying in the minefield.

  “The next day I saw men a short distance to my front, and I called to them for some assistance. At first, they seemed to be hesitant, and I suspect they were ‘stragglers.’ Finally, one man left to get help. It finally arrived in the form of a large bulldozer that came into the minefield from the rear. There was a driver and a man who followed in the path of the dozer track and others who remained outside the minefield. The dozer, as it came toward me, caused many explosions under the tracks as it ran over antipersonnel mines. When it drew near me, the operator called to me to turn away and put my helmet on the back of my head. He then proceeded along the left side of my body about a foot away. When he had cleared me, he stopped.

  “The second soldier had climbed up, stood on the track, reached down, and assisted m
e up. Using my rifle as a crutch, I was able to help him lift. He placed me on the hood facing forward. The operator was then going to take me out, but I convinced him to go over and pick up [another] of the wounded. I remember looking down and seeing one half of one of the eighteen- or twenty-four-inch-wide links in the track missing and hoping it would just hold together.

  “The dozer moved with the soldier walking the track and me on board, all the while exploding mines. We reached [the other GI] safely. He was lifted up and placed on the hood, and then the dozer backed out of the minefield. I could see his left foot was missing and his right eye out. There were a series of indents running down his forehead across the eye socket, where the belt of ammo must have been thrown up from the explosion, slapped into his face, and gouged his eye out.”

  Shock and his injuries clouded Ryan’s memory of what occurred subsequently. He dimly recalled futile efforts to find a vein for a needle and a visit from a chaplain who indicated he was dying. However, he survived, only to discover that when he reached a hospital in England, he was believed to be one of some German soldiers who infiltrated the American lines wearing GI uniforms. Ryan, who lost part of his right leg, was rescued from the ignominy of prisoner-of-war status by the accidental appearance of a wounded friend from Company F. The fellow sergeant confirmed Ryan’s American identity.

  Ryan’s rescuers came from the division’s 303d Engineer Battalion. According to that organization’s history, “A large, well-camouflaged schu minefield had protected the approaches to a machine gun nest and had claimed three infantry casualties. Two medics, attempting to aid the men, had also struck schu mines and volunteers were called for from the Engineers to get the men out. Captain Woodrow Dennison of the 1st Platoon, A Company, set out and soon probed into a schu mine, which exploded in his face. T/5 Raymond Sporenkel then offered to try driving his ‘cat’ across the field to the wounded, and Pfc. Arthur Reynolds, 3d Platoon medic, climbed on to care for the men as soon as they were reached.” The two men were awarded Bronze Stars for their actions.

  Troops from Company E headed into the battle aboard Shermans from the 709th Tank Battalion, which slowed and stalled in deep drifts of snow while antitank guns pelted them. Some of the foot soldiers, jumping off the armor, fought their way through mortars, machine guns, mines, and small arms to buildings on the outskirts of town. With the tanks they had left behind still bogged down, the small band of Americans had no radios to communicate with the battalion CP.

  Lieutenant Colonel Wilson L. Burley, Jr., the 2d Battalion commander who began the attack riding on a tank but left the vehicle for a shell crater along the main road into town, had little information on the whereabouts of his own troops and knew nothing about the enemy defenders. When he finally contacted the leaders of the two forward companies, he directed them to withdraw to more secure positions. The battalion commander decided to personally investigate the situation in Kesternich, a fatal move; his body was found some time later. With the executive officer missing in action, command of the battalion devolved upon the Company H honcho, Capt. Douglas P. Frazier.

  The 3d Battalion of the 309th also participated in the attack on Kesternich. Ray T. Fortunato, who had been a student at Penn State, where his one semester of advanced ROTC qualified him for OCS, led a platoon in Company I. “On 13 December, we attacked across an open field filled with haystacks. The haystacks turned out to be German pillboxes, and as soon as we were out in the open, they started firing. We returned enough fire that white flags appeared from the pillboxes. However, as some of the Germans came out to surrender, some of our soldiers, angered because some of their buddies had been killed or wounded, started firing on the surrendering soldiers. Needless to say, the white flags came down and the battle was on.

  “I was hit in the groin by a machine gunner. There were a total of four bullet holes in my trousers. Only one of the bullets did any real damage. It ripped open the inside of my leg. I lay on the battlefield until a medic came up and dressed my wound.

  “He suggested that I make my way back to the aid station. I did so on my hands and knees. First, I was put in the basement of a house with some other wounded from my company. We were shelled constantly while there. The next day, I was moved to a battalion aid station, then a regimental aid station, and then to a general hospital in Liége, Belgium.” He returned to Company I in the final days of the war.

  Unhappy with the results at Kesternich, Hodges groused about the confusion and poor intelligence. He scolded Gerow with a reminder of the debacle involving the 28th Division. The perilous circumstances of the 2d Battalion of the 309th forced Parker to order the 310th’s 2d Battalion, under Lt. Col. Byron W. Ladd, to move on Kesternich from the east. Unfortunately, Ladd’s troops never acquired intelligence on the defenses, and one machine gun in a concealed bunker wreaked havoc on the unsuspecting GIs. The Americans endured a fearful pounding from automatic weapons and then artillery after they scattered into ground saturated with antipersonnel mines. Ladd’s forces absorbed an estimated 25 percent in casualties. Nor had the attack improved the conditions for the men from the 309th. Company E’s number of effectives fell to about forty, and the tanks remained out of action, allegedly because of a dispute over whether they should get out in front of a bulldozer assigned to clear the road or follow the earthmover.

  Corporal Clete Henriksen, second in command of an 81mm mortar squad with H Company of the 310th, beginning on 13 December, recounted the moments as the outfit moved up and then plunged into the maelstrom. “The weather was cool and the sky was overcast. It was apparently a typical December day. There was snow on the ground. Even though the day was rather cold, it was a perfect day for a long march, as one’s body warms while walking, especially if one is carrying extra weight, as we were. We marched in orderly fashion and with very little talk or fanfare. We were told to allow several yards distance between ourselves, so it was difficult to converse with the marcher in front or in back. It was easier to talk with the soldier across the road.

  “I began to get the feeling we were approaching the front when I could see some smoke in the distance near the horizon. Also, I could hear muffled sounds that must have been the artillery or gunfire. It was just barely audible at first and only sporadic. The march took us over somewhat winding and hilly roads through countryside that undoubtedly was naturally beautiful, but we were not in the proper mood for enjoying the scenery.”

  The ominous signs of war, split or broken trees, chunks of metal and wood, and then pieces of discarded or destroyed equipment—a nearly capsized jeep or an American steel helmet sitting atop a ditch bank—obliterated interest in bucolic splendor. The pungent odor of a dead horse and the sound of a human in obvious pain crying out from an adjacent field intensified the anxiety.

  The column reached a barricade of dragon’s teeth and then entered the village of Simmerath, where the troops experienced their first taste of incoming. “My platoon was directed to a certain location near what appeared to be the center of town. As I came around the corner of a house, oh my God, there lay the bodies of two dead German soldiers not over a yard apart.

  “Dawn broke on December 14, and we expected to be called upon to fire our mortars. However, we were restrained and learned later that it was due to the inability of forward observers to pinpoint the exact positions of substantial numbers of the enemy, together with fear of firing on our own forces, some of which were still unaccounted for from the previous day’s fighting. We were told that our rifle companies were moving to the attack of a heavily fortified community called Kesternich. Enemy 88 shells were hitting our town again, and there were rumors of individual German snipers still in Simmerath, although the town was essentially in American hands.”

  Restless members of the mortar section wandered about Simmerath, frequently firing their rifles into the upstairs wreckage of houses as a prophylaxis against snipers. The troops nibbled on K rations and obeyed orders to fortify their mortar positions in the event of a counterattack. “In t
he late afternoon, we were shocked to learn that SSgt. Raymond Kaster, our able squad leader, had been shot and killed by an enemy soldier. Evidently, Sergeant Kaster had been a bit too trusting in expecting a German soldier to surrender. Instead, the Kraut mortally wounded our brave colleague.” As a direct consequence, Henriksen was given command of the squad.

  In the dawning hours of 15 December, a coordinated tank, artillery, and infantry attack, with combined forces from the 2d battalions of both regiments, struck at Kesternich. Hard fighting brought some armor and foot soldiers into the town to engage in bitter, bloody, house-to-house struggles. Unfortunately, command and control collapsed. Some soldiers, needed in the event of a counterattack, escorted prisoners to the rear. Others sought protection within the rubble of buildings. Squad and platoon leaders lost contact with their men.

  “We were given permission,” said Henriksen, “to begin firing our mortars according to prearranged conditions and in support of our troops. In the confusion of battle, we did not get reports of progress or lack of same, but we were given orders to fire and do other things without knowing what the situation really was. If, however, we were ordered to lay a barrage of fire at 700 yards and later were told to fire again at 600 yards, we could be reasonably sure that the enemy was making progress in our direction and this could be very unsettling.

  “Not long after we began firing our mortars, the enemy sensed this activity was coming out of Simmerath, and we started receiving incoming artillery fire much closer to our positions. It was during that day that a German 88 shell landed either directly in or at the very edge of one of our mortar emplacements, killing Private Dorn and seriously wounding a fellow squad member. Many other incoming missiles struck in the vicinity of our dug-in positions, and one extremely close hit tore part of the makeshift half-roof off our position. The word we received from the front was that heavy fighting was in progress, and it was reported that the two machine gun heavy weapons platoons of our H Company had also received some casualties. This was distressing news.”