Aachen: The U.S. Army's Battle for Charlemagne's City in World War II (12 page)

A half hour later another German platoon made an attempt to charge the slope fronting Dawson's line, this time toward his 1st Platoon. The slope here was virtually a cliff; the soldiers dropped hand grenades on the Germans as they tried to climb up and attack. Supporting 81mm mortar fire, adjusted to fall just some 35 yards beyond the platoon's final protective line, was particularly effective in stopping this attack. Captain Richmond's Company I had filled in the gap between Dawson's men and Company E by this time, adding lateral support to Lieutenant Colonel Hicks's positions during the ongoing morning attack. After fierce fighting, during which Dawson's 2nd Platoon and his machine-gun section expended thirty thousand rounds of ammunition, the attack stopped around noon. The Germans made another attempt at 1400, only to get within 50 yards of Company G's positions before again being repulsed. Company E lost one man killed and ten wounded; Captain Dawson suffered seven wounded, including one of his aid men who had gone out to help a German who was hit, only to have the wounded man's brethren open fire on the American trying to save his life.

At 0800 that same morning, Lieutenant Colonel Driscoll ordered another attack on Munsterbusch, again with the objective of taking the crossroad in the village and the pickle factory at the northeast end of town. This attack jumped off with his Company A on the left, supported by a platoon of medium tanks, while Captain Merendino's Company B moved up on the right with light tanks. As the two companies approached the buildings on the outskirts of town, enemy small-arms and direct tank fire slowed their movement. Driscoll remembered at the time, “The enemy opposing the 1st Battalion was now of a higher quality. Prisoners began to come in from the 105th Panzer Brigade, and two Battle Groups organized as Kampfgruppe Schemm.”
²⁹

A short report written just a few days later by Maj. Heinrich Volker, commander of the 105th Panzer Brigade, revealed the actual state of the troops opposing Driscoll's 1st Battalion at the time. When the brigade withdrew from the
Westwall
on 14 September, 56 officers, 236 NCOs, and 1,705 men made up its combat strength. These men formed a battle group under Volker's command, to include
Kampfgruppe Schemm
, named for its commander
Hauptmann
Gunther Schemm, Training Battalion 473 (3rd Battalion), Local Defense Battalion 6 (2nd Company),
Armored Engineer Battalion 16 commanded by
Oberleutnant
Blohme, Local Defense Fortress Battalion 8 led by
Hauptmann
Baier, Assault Gun Brigade 394 (1st Company), and Antitank Battalion 50. By 18 September, these numbers had been reduced, in Volker's estimation because of “physical decline and exhaustion.”
³⁰
Others had been “dispersed and annihilated by enemy and artillery fire” after “nonstop attacks against the bunkers [by American] heavy tank and infantry forces.” Losses of his own tanks had been “considerable,” in light of previous attacks by U.S. armor. One day earlier the 105th Panzer Brigade had just eight tanks and was expected to be sent back to Julich for refitting.
³¹

Volker might not have agreed with Lieutenant Colonel Driscoll that his troops were of “higher quality” as he was even critical of his own men, suggesting that “as soon as the enemy deploys smoke to announce his imminent attack, the first elements leave their positions and hole up in the basements of houses and in the woods.” Volker had reason to feel this way; he also noted that “[his] interventions in trying to keep the men in their positions were only momentarily successful since it was impossible to keep the men together. Those men who had been assembled before the large scale operations and had been trained by their own commanders were decimated during the first days to such an extent that it was no longer possible to talk about close units.”
³²

Not unexpectedly, by 1600 hours Company A had penetrated Major Volker's forces that remained in place. While one of its platoons got close to the slag piles near the pickle factory, Merendino's Company B ran into difficulties in a nearby cemetery where other tanks and infantry counterattacked. The fighting was at close quarters, hand-to-hand, and Driscoll was eventually forced to pull Captain Merendino's men back to the line initially held by Company A, some 500 yards west of town. This was fortunate. More Germans, not units of the 105th Panzer Brigade, were in the center of Munsterbusch; just one officer and eight men returned from the platoon that had reached the slag piles. At 1730, as the company was consolidating its positions, another German unit attacked from the woods to the north with approximately 140 men and 2 tanks. The company held, assisted by the medium tank platoon with which they had started their mission; however, there was a danger that these men could be cut off by an attack into their right rear by more enemy forces directly to the south in Munsterbusch itself. Fortunately, by late afternoon help was on the
way. A company of tanks from CCA arrived, and at dusk they were put in a ring behind Driscoll's infantry.

General Hickey had originally expected the 1st Battalion of the 16th Infantry to take Munsterbusch alone while Task Force Doan and Orr's 1st Battalion of the 36th Armored Infantry attacked northeastward to Schneidmuhle through the breach in the Schill Line at England. Once Lieutenant Colonel Driscoll had taken Munsterbusch and Orr had taken his objective, the two battalions were to join forces. The enemy resistance Driscoll met on 18 September changed this. As Hickey remembered:

The situation at Munsterbusch was now complicated by two factors. One, all three of [Driscoll's] companies were pinned down by the enemy. A and C were along the main road west of Munsterbusch, while his Company B was on the slope southwest of town. Two, the chain of command was not rigid. Initially the 1st Battalion of the 16th Infantry was never officially attached to CCA. Co-operation among the various units existed to a high degree, but the actual system of command was not worked out.
³³

With it now clear that the forces at the disposal of both Driscoll and Orr were insufficient to take either Munsterbusch or Schneidmuhle, General Hickey suggested to General Rose that Orr's 1st Battalion be withdrawn from its positions on the far side of the dragon's teeth and recommitted toward Munsterbusch. The 3rd Armored Division's commander concurred, and the order was given.

Unknown to any American officer on the night of 18 September, the Germans had cleverly arrayed their defenses in Munsterbusch. Their tanks had been placed in among the taller buildings so that their firing positions and exact locations were difficult to determine. They had fields of fire not just down the main streets, but also down side streets that they could get to by moving their tanks into slightly different positions. Around the paved rectangular road network covered by these tanks, enemy infantry—three companies of the 10th Panzer Brigade and elements of the Home Guard—had built up many strongpoints.
³⁴
These included machine-gun emplacements, clusters of snipers in building windows, and other observation points. Cellars in the buildings were even
connected by underground passageways. This defense was designed to prevent American infantry from approaching the German tanks and knocking them out with bazooka fire. At the same time, the emplacements of the Home Guard were intended to prevent U.S. forces from getting anywhere near the tanks of the 10th Panzer Brigade.

At first light on that warmer and sunny 19 September, Lieutenant Colonel Orr withdrew his companies from their positions inside of the Schill Line. At the time he had just sixty, seventy, and ninety men in his Companies A to C, respectively. To augment his forces, he was also given the support of Lt. Col. Walter B. Richardson's 3rd Battalion of the 32nd Armored Regiment. But in view of the difficulty of withdrawing under enemy fire to assemble with Richardson's forces south of Buschmuhle, Orr's infantry was unable to join with Driscoll's companies for the renewed Munsterbusch initiative until midafternoon.

The Germans had gone on the offensive much earlier that day. At 0700 they attacked Driscoll's companies, again from the woods to the north and from the western edges of the village. These attacks were repulsed with the aid of DIVARTY, as well as the light and medium tanks supporting his infantry companies; three Mark IV tanks were knocked out during the morning's action. The 1st Battalion casualty reports later showed one officer and twenty-three enlisted men wounded and evacuated during this fight alone.
³⁵
Then at noon, Driscoll met with Lieutenant Colonel Orr. They made plans for the new offensive, with Orr's infantry passing through Driscoll's positions. Orr planned to lead with Richardson's tanks, his infantry following close behind. He would commit two of Richardson's companies just to the south of Driscoll's Company A and Captain Briggs's Company C.

When Orr's battalion moved up, Briggs's Company C was spread out along the road running from Buschmuhle to Munsterbusch facing northward. Driscoll's Company A was farther to the east along the same road, also in positions looking to the north. Merendino's Company B was dug in on the rough ground southeast of Munsterbusch near an enemy pillbox; his troops faced eastward. The attack began at 1500 hours when Richardson's tanks moved out as planned. The armored vehicles moved just 500 yards, and then a German tank hidden in one of the buildings in town opened up, knocking out two of the American tanks. “The enemy had excellent fields of fire from this protective place,” Orr remembered.
“It became clear that unless the infantry could get into the buildings first, the attack could not continue.”
³⁶

Led by Capt. Basil I. Mishtowt of Company C and Lt. C. W. Major of Company A, the infantry indeed moved forward in squad groups through the rugged ground west of town. Heavy automatic guns and sniper fire hindered the move, but two of Mishtowt's platoons and one of Major's Company A platoons still managed to dash across the open ground. Two men received direct hits from enemy tank guns before these forces reached the first buildings on the edge of Munsterbusch. This tender foothold permitted Captain Merendino's Company B to move ahead to the right and by 1800 a line had been formed along the buildings bordering Praemienstrasse, the main road in town. Meanwhile, Captain Mishtowt's Company C platoons pushed ahead and reached the pickle factory. The other companies in the attack could not come abreast of these forces, however, so Orr had to pull Mishtowt's company back. His men eventually dug into defensive positions along both sides of Praemienstrasse to the south, tying their right flank in with Merendino's Company B along Amaliastrasse. They set up machine guns to cover the avenues of approach.

Orr's Company B had cut into the flank of the enemy from the south by this time. Strewn along a slope on the road that led out of Munsterbusch to Busbach, these men received enfilade fire during the afternoon from the buildings to their left. “This automatic fire, as well as sniper fire from the buildings, cut the company off for some time,” Orr noted later. “The draw down which the enemy was firing behind Company B made contact impossible. They dug in at this position for the night.”

“The enemy employed sound tactics, making the attack that much more difficult,” Lieutenant Colonel Doan, who was the overall commander of the day's attack, remembered. “Their tanks took concealment by the high walls along the streets, and their infantry prevented [us] from getting at these tanks. When the medium tanks of [Richardson's armor] tried to go in, one was knocked out. The enemy infantry had snipers in the building's windows and men in the basements with submachine guns. By dark most of the town was in the possession of [our] infantry, which had to reduce the strongpoints with house-to-house fighting. About 55 prisoners were taken; the factories on the north edge of town were still in enemy hands, however.”
³⁷

Elements of the 83rd Reconnaissance Battalion had moved into Busbach the previous day and established an observation post in a house on the corner of the main crossroad in the northern part of town. Task Force Miller, commanded by Lt. Col. Clifford L. Miller and comprised of the 2nd Battalion of the 32nd Armored Regiment and Company D of the 23rd Engineering Battalion, had moved up from 3rd Armored Division Reserve to cut off the threat of an enemy attack back through the Schill Line after Orr's companies vacated Busbach to make the attack on Munsterbusch. By this time, the 83rd's outpost had also been vacated. The 36th Armored Infantry Regiment's S-1, Capt. R. W. Russell recalled, “This was to avoid friendly artillery fire several hundred yards farther south. [After this] the enemy filtered through the dragon's teeth.”
³⁸

Task Force Blanchard, another reserve element under the command of Lt. Col. Elwyn W. Blanchard, had also become engaged by this time. One of his medium tank companies, Company D, commanded by Lt. Elton K. McDonald, was ordered up to lend further assistance to Driscoll's 1st Battalion in their continuing attack on Munsterbusch. McDonald moved northeast out of the Brander Wald at approximately 1500 hours on 19 September, and then cut to the open ground near the dragon's teeth. “Only occasional sniper fire was heard by the tankers,” he recalled later. “By dark [we] had taken up a position part of the way up the slope towards Munsterbusch near a pillbox where [1/16] was likewise emplaced.”
³⁹
Even more help was on the way, this time from Lieutenant Colonel Peckham's 3rd Battalion of Colonel Smith's 18th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Division. A gap still existed on the northeast side of Munsterbusch, and Captain Folk's Company L would fill this opening the next day.

New orders were handed down to Task Force Mills southeast of Stolberg on 19 September. At 0800 Colonel Boudinot ordered Mills to turn to the southwest, move down the valley in this direction, proceed to the Vicht River, and from there turn west. In making this move, Major Mills was to skirt the woods near Burgholzerhof where his tanks had been held up by bazooka fire the day before and then move into Stolberg from the southeast. Task Force Lovelady was to follow.