Rhinelander (Kirov Series Book 40)

by Schettler, John

  That got a laugh, but Ike noticed that Bradley seemed quiet. “Brad,” he said. “Push on up to within striking distance of Malmedy. I’ve saved a little something for you. Then we’ll have a look at the Monschau Gap.”

  Part IX

  Across the Roer

  “War is young men dying and old men talking.”

  —Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Chapter 25

  Operation Clipper

  7-OCT-44

  When Patton kicked off his attack, he was very gratified by the initial results. The Germans had moved the 26th Volksgrenadier Division in to seal off the Stolberg Corridor south of Eschweiler, and he hit them hard with the 18th Regiment of the Big Red 1. He had fought over this ground once before, and now seemed in great haste to reclaim it. 1st Infantry punched a hole through the enemy line, nearly overrunning the HQ of the German 116th Regiment, and pushed 3 kilometers to the town of Bergrath. Coming up behind them was CCA of 2nd Armored.

  The German “Miracle in the West” had worked its magic, rebuilding thirty burned out infantry divisions and restoring seven Panzer divisions to their former glory, but the magic wand could not change the caliber and quality of the men that now filled those ranks. 26th Volksgrenadier Division had a core of good veterans, but it was filled out with Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe troops, neither having any experience as infantry. Up against a crack veteran US division, they could not hold the line.

  Yet while O’Connor’s big operations in Holland had pulled in all the mobile reserves that were north of the Rhine, von Rundstedt was not without resources here in the central Rhine-Ruhr region. So when Patton opened his offensive, mobile reserves were not far off at Duren, where the 105th Panzer Brigade was still holding forth. It sallied out, taking the road to Eschweiler and then swinging down through Nothberg to reach Bergrath just as the recon troop of 1st Infantry was arriving. The Americans would soon meet a wall of Panthers, supported by the 26th Fusilier Battalion, and they were sharply checked.

  As dawn rose on the 7th of October, heavy rain began to fall, under a lowering sky. The same bad weather that had plagued O’Connor would also dampen US hopes here, but the stiff wind and biting rain wasn’t going to stop 2nd Armored. Collier committed his entire combat command, armor heavy, and the 105th was soon in another tank duel with hordes of Shermans. The US tankers plowed right into the German defense at Bergrath, and also sidestepped to flank it on the right, sending a strong combat team through Werth. The German brigade, now fielding 27 Panthers, soon found itself overmatched by two full battalions of US armor, backed by good infantry.

  Behind this action, sitting in a long steel column in the rain, all of White’s CCB was strung out for six kilometers on the road to Kornelimunster. Having seen what Patton did when he played out this opening the first time, von Rundstedt considered what his next move would be. He had moved his first Knight to the center of the board, but now he found it under strong attack. One more piece sat at the center of the road and rail web that converged on Julich, like a dark spider. There was Remer’s Führer Begleit Brigade , as the combined “Führer Sturm Division” had been broken up into its various brigades and dispersed in reserve.

  That was a good Bishop, with that road net offering long diagonals to strike in many directions. Two good roads led to Eschweiler and the mines near Lammersdorf. The Field Marshal also had the two missing Panzer divisions in reserve, the 7th at Dusseldorf, and the 116th at Koln. The 3rd Panzergrenadier Division lingered between those two vital cities on the Rhine, another ready mobile reserve, and the icing on his cake was the Führer Grenadier Brigade at Bonn.

  If Guderian had his way, he would have combined all three of those units into a strong Panzerkorps, and sent it galloping off to make a bold counterattack. But von Rundstedt was a careful position player. He had tested Patton’s resolve by first sending in the 105th Panzer Brigade. Now it needed something more. Being much closer to the scene, the call went out to General Remer, and his Führer Begleit Brigade was soon moving from Julich. The 928th Bicycle Battalion pedaled south to arrive at Eschweiler a little after 10:00. It was a ten kilometer ride through the rain, but the road was paved and in good shape. They would soon be joined by the VK-90 Lions of the Panzer Battalion, and the two Panzergrenadier battalions were forming up, the 10th already counterattacking the Americans an hour before noon, the 3rd in reserve.

  The movement of those two brigades was the equivalent of committing a full Panzer division to stop Patton’s attack, and the battle would see-saw among the charred mining towns, over piles of slag, and through the rubble of ruined towns, all drenched by that pouring rain. Burning vehicles lit the scene in the dull grey mid-day light, the sun powerless to penetrate the gloom. Everywhere the smell of burning oil, rubber, steel, all combined to create a thick patina in the air that seemed to stick to the roof of your mouth.

  The radios hummed with voices, platoons of tanks responding to maneuver orders in the rubble. Sometimes two or three Shermans would get into a fight with a single Panther or Lion, trying to engage it frontally with one tank in a good hull down position, while the others maneuvered to try and get a flank shot.

  The Sherman Jumbo assault tank had good frontal armor, augmented in places up to 177mm or a full seven inches That was enough to stop a round from a Panther-75 if they got lucky, but the Panther’s 100mm frontal armor was still good enough to stop most rounds from a Sherman. It came down to which side hit the opponent in a vulnerable spot first, and by sheer weight of numbers, the Americans would get off two or three shots for each one the Germans fired.

  That battle would rage through the afternoon, with the old coal mining town of Bergrath changing hands many times. Each side had powerful reserves at hand, which was going to make for a particularly bloody battle of attrition. Patton would get no quick or easy breakout against those two German Panzer brigades, but he had pulled the local reserve out of Julich, and that would that soon make a difference when the northern pincer of Operation Clipper launched the following morning. There, Truscott was mustering his armor near Heinsberg, ready to cross the shallow Wurm River and drive for Linnich and Julich….

  Operation Grenade

  When Texas Bill Simpson turned in on the night of the 6th of October, he was ruminating on whether or not he should toss his Operation Grenade in to the enemy camp. 4th Armored was massed at Venlo, ready to roll, but the weather was so bad that they would have no air support. He decided the artillery would have to do the job instead, thinking he may surprise the Germans by attacking in foul weather.

  His attack would fall on three battalions of the 7th Parachute division, a unit that was still slowly congealing from recruits herded into Goring’s training camps. 4th Armored was one of the most efficient armored formations of the war, and Simpson turned it loose, with the Greyhounds of 4th Armored Cav waiting to exploit any breakthrough. That one-two punch was enough to pierce the line, and thunder on through, with the fast moving M8 Armored cars racing all the way to Kaldenkirchen by noon on the 7th.

  One enemy battalion, formerly on loan to Kurt Chill’s 85th, was driven southwest towards Tegelen on the Meuse. The other two were pushed aside into the Brachterwald Forest, but when the 4th Cav reached the city, they found something they had not expected, the long barrels of the 507th Tiger Battalion. It had been further south behind Roermond, the same Tigers that had tormented the 2nd Infantry during the Rhinelander offensive. Taking the road through Swalmen, which swept behind the thick forest, the Tigers arrived in time to contest the issue at Kaldenkirchen. Yet the cavalry reported the roads looked empty and open to the east, through Hinsbeek and Lobberich. It appeared the attack had, indeed achieved surprise.

  Von Rundstedt telephoned General Kurt Chill at Munchen Gladbach that morning, where the 85th Infantry had enjoyed the last several weeks in reserve.

  “Vacation time is over,” he said. “We have rumblings from Patton near Eschweiler again, and now there is an attack north of the Brachterwald into Kaldenkirchen. It may g
et through, in which case I want your division ready to cover Munchen-Gladbach. See if you can get something into Viersen as well.”

  Chill would respond by ordering his 1054th Regiment to form a defensive front from Viersen to the southwest The rest of his division would take up positions to cover the city, and he sent his Pioneer Battalion up the road through Bolsheim, just seven kilometers southeast of the breakthrough, to set up a blocking position there.

  As dusk fell, the 4th Cav had its troopers dismounted, noting the positions of those Tigers. That night, they planned to bring up their two companies of M36 tank destroyers, with the stronger 90mm main gun. Though they looked like a new model tank, they were really lightly armored, and could not stand toe to toe with a Tiger by any means. What they could do, was use the cover of darkness to maneuver into defilade positions where they could use those 90mm guns and try to set up cross fires on the German positions that had been scouted.

  Dawn would begin the battle to clear Kaldenkirchen and open the roads leading south and east. Scoop Jackson was a big eater, and he had always wielded his spoon like a shovel in the mess lines back in the States, which is why he got that nickname. Today he had a Tiger tank in his way, and three M-36 Tank Destroyers in his platoon to kill it. Behind him, the M8 Armored Car troops were huddled along the streets amid the rubble, waiting for their chance to run again. But there was no way they could get past that big Tiger up ahead—not without loosing too many good men in the effort.

  It was up to Scoop.

  Jackson missed his older M-18 Hellcat. When the first US Tank Destroyers got into the fight, the M-10’s were quickly outgunned when facing the new German “Big Cats.” Their 3-inch guns just couldn’t penetrate the armor on the Lions and Panthers, let alone Tigers. The M-18 Hellcat was therefore introduced with a better 76mm gun, and it would end up being the most effective tank killer of the war for the Americans. But as the Germans kept upping their game with newer models of the Lion, someone back in the States wanted to answer the Kraut VK-90, and the M-36 was the result. It was basically an old M-10 Chassis, but with a new turret that now mounted a stronger 90mm main gun.

  The Tiger out there behind a rubble pile had 120mm frontal armor, tougher than a Panther to penetrate at any decent range. But this fight would be a bar room brawl, up close and personal, and Scoop had more of a punch than the Germans might think with the new High Velocity Armor Piercing rounds his TD was carrying. The HVAP rounds could penetrate just over 300mm at 1000 yards. At point blank range, (30 feet), the damn thing could blow through all of 15 inches of vertical armor.

  A Tank Destroyer seldom got a shot like that, because the Germans were too good to let you get in close. But here they were stuck in that rubble pile, and most likely with orders to block this road, which is why the Tiger sat there adamantly all night in the rain. The recon troop behind Jackson’s platoon tried to sneak up on the Germans twice that night, but they proved to be alert, and drove off both attempts with withering MG fire. So it was up to Scoop.

  He had three M-36 TD’s and he was going to put hellfire down on that German Tiger from three sides as soon as they had enough light to see the damn thing. Jackson got out of his TD, crawling up around a big chunk of broken concrete with a pair of field glasses to try and spot the tank. The Germans had piled up a lot of stones in front of it, and threw any other broken beams, and even part of a door over the tank to try and camouflage their position. But Scoop saw what they had done, and smiled. He had a bead on it, and now all he had to do was distract the big monster. If he just started taking pot-shots at it, the Tiger would see where his own TD was hiding, and that would precipitate a gunfight to see who could hit first. Jackson’s M-36 had only 76mm of armor on the rounded gun shield on the turret. He was hull down behind six feet of rubble, and if the Germans did see him and fire, they would be aiming for his turret.

  So he started with the infantry, a troop from the M8’s scrambling to flank the Tiger, moving from one broken building to the next, and making sure they made enough noise so the Germans would see them coming. The Krauts took the bait, and Scoop saw the big German turret slowly rotate in that direction. That was when his number two M-36, Jimmy Clark’s TD, was supposed to take a shot from an alley on the opposite angle. He heard the crack of the gun, but the round came in too high, clipping the stone pile in front of the Tiger. That big turret quickly swung back in Clark’s direction, and the 88 barked in reprisal as that TD was backpedaling for all it was worth.

  But it was too late. Clark couldn’t get back fast enough, and the shadows of night no longer offered him any protection. Jerry had his first kill, and Jimmy Clark and his crew would not be going home. Scoop swore under his breath.

  “Grimby,” he rasped. “Got a shot?”

  “Hell Sarge, they got so much crap on that tank I can’t see a thing. You want me to put one right into that rubble pile?”

  “No! You hold tight. We don’t make our move until they show us some leg. Fire now and they’ll just make out our position and start zipping in 88 rounds. Let’s see what the infantry can do.”

  A squad from the M8s was trying to flank the Tiger again on its right, and the big turret slowly rotated back in that direction, the MGs starting to tear up the buildings on that side of the street. As it did so, something slipped in the pile of detritus the Germans had used for camo on the Tiger, and Gunner Grimby suddenly saw the back end of that turret.

  “Sarge! I think I see the bastard.”

  “Stick it to them, Grim!”

  He did. The round came in hot and caught the back end of the Tiger’s turret, and it blew right through. All the ready ammo in the turret blew up and it went cascading into the grey morning, a spectacular kill if ever they was one. Jackson’s M-36 had evened the score, and with that kill, the infantry was able to get further down the street to report the road was clear.

  Scoop went over to his M-36, reached into his pocket, and took out that stub of white chalk he always carried. Climbing inside he gave Grimby a pat on the shoulder, and then scored a thick vertical line on the inside turret wall, their fourth kill. Then he got on the radio. He was going to tell battalion that they could damn well start moving shit over the river now. Kaldenkirchen was clear.

  Chapter 26

  Simpson ordered the engineers to begin bridging operations that morning. The M1938 aluminum foot bridges were a marvelous invention, and could be deployed to a length of 150 feet in just ten minutes, but that would not do. The Meuse was 510 feet wide at that crossing site, and it would therefore need four M1938’s positioned end to end, to span that distance. Furthermore, they would have to be floated into position on pontoons, which was going to take even more time, all in the darkness and rain. The interim solution was to use the flat bottomed assault boats to get a couple battalions across and secure the far bank. By morning, the engineers then planned to have at least one four span M1938 foot bridge up, and an M2 Treadway vehicle bridge on inflatable pontoons, which would take at least 8 hours, possibly more, to build. The whole division might have simply motored north to Venlo, but that was where Terry Allan’s Timberwolves were crossing.

  The attack was textbook perfect on the first day, and the fact that only one battalion of Tigers had been in local reserve greatly aided Simpson’s success. That was about to change. Von Rundstedt ordered General Mauss to take his 7thPanzer Division back across the Rhine at Dusseldorf, and move west. They would pass through Neuss, and then take the road through Anrath to Viersen, with the recon Battalion coming up on the right flank of the troops Kurt Chill had posted there earlier in the day. Mauss was to keep the Americans from Krefeld, and the Rhine bridge beyond, and then bring the incursion to a halt, but that would be a tall order.

  Simpson got 4th Armored moving, on another day that began with moderate rainfall promising to get worse. Mud was already an issue, and it would only thicken with the added rain, but it did not stop CCA from sending TF Murphy to blow through the blocking position Chill’s engineers had tried to se
t up at Bolsheim. The Germans were pushed out of the town and forced to retreat all the way to the larger city of Dulken, a four kilometer hike in the rain.

  Simpson was turning the enemy flank as promised, peeling them off the river, and approaching his interim objective at Dulken by sunrise, which was nothing more than the darkness slowly lightening to grey that day. He had gained just over 15 kilometers, a first down in Eisenhower’s eyes, and was telephoned directly by Ike with congratulations in his opening operation with 9th Army.

  Not to be eclipsed, Patton was eager to get things moving his way as well. Now the reason why he staggered his two planned attacks for Operation Clipper became evident. His Phase I attack up the Stolberg Corridor had pulled in the two local German brigades that had been posted at Julich and Duren. Now his Phase II attack, which was, in fact the main attack, would strike north of Gielenkirchen.

  8-OCT-44

  The Wurm river was no obstacle, easily waded by infantry, and crossable by tanks without bridging support. Clipper-II was tasked with breaking through that area, and then securing Linnich on the Roer first, before pushing further south to Julich. A stubborn company of the 48th Volksgrenadier Division in pillboxes had to be pried out of the village of Wurm itself, but otherwise the crossing went smoothly.