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

by Gerald Astor

  Top commanders blamed the shortages of the vital fodder of war for the failure to break through to the Rhine and, to some degree, the lack of aggressiveness of the GIs against determined resistance. Because all of the evidence indicated that the Westwall was either sparsely defended or inhabited by second- and third-rate soldiers—physically limited men fit only for the SOS or fortress defense troops, members of the Landesschutzen or home guard, recruits still in training, and a few staff or cadre personnel—the top brass insisted that the weight of the U.S. forces should have been able to smash through the Westwall and surrounding forces to the objective of the Roer. Formidable fortifications at Omaha and Utah Beaches had not stopped the D-day landings. But there were significant differences when it came to the German border.

  When the Allies invaded the Normandy beaches, massive, reinforced concrete pillboxes, similar to those in the Westwall, confronted them. But the naval vessels offshore, with their five- to sixteen-inch guns smashed the fortifications with projectiles that weighed as much as a ton. The First Army could not call on ships to hurl shells, nor could the Air Corps pinpoint well-camouflaged targets hidden in the woods.

  The thickness of the Westwall pillboxes defied even the feared Jabos, the name Germans bestowed on P-47 fighter-bombers that ravaged their ranks and vehicles during the campaign across France. George Wilson from the 22d Regiment of the 4th Division noted, “One day we heard the pillboxes to our front were going to be bombed by our P-47 fighter-bombers. To get a better view of the dive-bombing, less than half a mile from our area, some of us walked through the woods and mines to the old farmhouse we had found on our night patrol.

  “We climbed up the back side and lay with just our heads above the roof line. Grandstand seats on the fifty-yard line. It was a tremendous show. We watched spellbound as the P-47s came over at ten thousand feet and then, one by one, tipped their wings and dived straight down at the pillboxes.

  “The drone of the planes’ engines became a thunderous roar as they sped earthward. My heart seemed to stop, and I held my breath waiting for them to pull up out of the dives.

  “When it seemed suicidally late, they released their bombs and somehow managed to level off just a few hundred feet from the ground. The bombs hit smack on top of the seven-foot-thick concrete-and-steel pillboxes. From our angle we could see no damage at all. No roofs were caved in, no huge cracks appeared. Probably the Jerries had hellish headaches from concussion, but nothing was visible. All the great show did was raise dust.”

  Although GIs underwent extensive training in house-to-house combat, they received far less instruction in the techniques to approach and incapacitate a pillbox. The bazooka rocket was a useful tool, but one had to be close enough to put a round through an embrasure. Unlike the marines in the South Pacific, who enthusiastically adopted the flamethrower, incidentally developed by army ordnance specialists, the Americans in Europe were not abundantly endowed with the weapons that were so effective against Japanese bunkers. GIs in the 9th Division allegedly found flamethrowers ineffective against the massive fortifications of the Siegfried Line. The thickness of the walls insulated against the heat generated by flamethrowers.

  Because the prescribed methods for assaulting pillboxes and concrete bunkers were not working, the 9th Division’s 15th Engineer Battalion experimented with various approaches and finally concluded that the only effective technique involved an attack downward through the top. Using captured enemy “beehive” charges, the engineers blew away the five-foot layer of soil that covered the emplacement. Then the Americans tied together four beehives and detonated as many as a half dozen consecutive charges to create a hole in the concrete two and a half feet deep. Into that went 200 pounds of TNT. The concussion brought surrender.

  The procedure, however, required GIs to get near enough to climb on top of the fortification. Any attempt to approach one of the bastions still had to cope with interlocking lanes of fire from other bunkers, tanks, and snipers. In addition, those directly involved in deploying troops and armor were discovering that movement, particularly in the wooded areas, was often much more difficult than anticipated. Blown bridges created bottlenecks and slowed advances. What appeared on a map to be a road frequently proved to be little more than a narrow, dirt track incapable of handling heavy traffic, even without the menace of enemy guns.

  4

  STALLED

  Less than a week into the offensive in the forest, the Germans began to exact an increasing toll on the attackers. Although the platoon led by Chester Jordan entered Schevenhutte with little opposition, it soon faced a now vigorous enemy.

  Jordan remembered, “I was not allowed to loll around the beer hall for even one more beer. We were sent up the ridge toward Gressenich. At first, we picked up the hiking trail, but by dark it had quit on us, and we were trying to guide on the road. The orderly tree planting had played out with the path, and we were now banging around in natural growth. Suddenly, it sounded as though we had walked into the middle of a German military convention. There was laughter, wood chopping, metal pounding, and, worst of all, a pack of barking dogs. I very quietly radioed the company, and they said, ‘Hold what you’ve got.’ That is not what I wanted to hear.

  “I told the men to spread out, and if they wished to dig, to do so without [a] sound. I had the radioman switch off the radio, because I didn’t want any electronic screams coming from our neck of the woods. We lay there listening to the German noises and dreading the moment when those damn dogs got a sniff of us. They should have been able to smell us in Düren.

  “As we tried to melt into the earth there came another gut-wrencher. On the road below us, a Kraut unit sounded like they were doing a Jodie drill as they double-timed in the direction of Schevenhutte. My God, were those bastards singing as they ran into battle? Evidently no, because we heard no rifle fire. They must have been going to man the pillbox. We had a fearful, fretful night.

  “When it got light the next day (it was not very bright in those woods at midday), I found the entire platoon was within a thirty-foot circle—one 60mm mortar shell would have wiped us all out. I called the company, and they said hold until further notice. They also said there was no chow of any kind.

  “I had the men spread out so that it would take at least two shells to get us. Silent digging was mandated by their fellow man. Not only was the soil rocky, but it was full of roots that made it impossible digging. I didn’t even try. Since the spot we were in was indefensible, it was imperative that we not be attacked.”

  For the isolated platoon, the day passed with the continued sounds of the Germans at work nearby. “The only thing Ihad to eat in my bag,” said Jordan, “was a D ration bar and one of the compressed fruit bars from a 10-in-1 ration. I ate the fruit bar and it tasted like a banana. It took enough of the edge off my hunger that I didn’t have to face the D ration until evening. By then I was starving again. I took a bite of the bar and put it right back in my musette bag. I was not hungry enough yet.

  “I fantasized about food all night. I retasted every good steak I had ever eaten. Even peanut butter cropped up in my memory, but it must have been from home. I don’t think I ever saw any peanut butter while I was in the army. Hunger even drove fear into a second-place position, but I never got hungry enough to take another bite of that D bar.”

  For a second day, Jordan and his people remained in their position, whispering to one another while starvation pains racked their stomachs. Just before nightfall, welcome word came from company headquarters, ordering the troops to fall back and dig in along a ridge overlooking the village. They settled down in a site well protected by tightly packed fir trees. Between them and Schevenhutte, now occupied by others from their battalion, lay a no-man’s-land covered by enemy weapons.

  “To get food and ammunition, we had to send carrying parties across this no-man’s-land at night. From time to time the Krauts were waiting for them. After the first three days, the other platoons were getting mass attacks every nigh
t. Sometimes the Krauts went right through to the village but then [retreated] with tremendous losses. Every morning we would stack their dead on our trucks like cordwood to be hauled away. Our hill was not easy to attack, and if they got Schevenhutte, they would have us anyhow.

  “My squad leaders had to rotate the distasteful and dangerous duty of providing the nightly carrying party. One night the Krauts met them in the valley with accurate machine gun fire. The squad leader and another man were wounded. They told me that as they loaded the squad leader into the meat wagon, he was shouting obscenities about my parentage, my intellect, my character, and consigned all to hell.

  “After a week of constant attack, the Krauts evidently decided that they didn’t have enough men to keep attacking, so they settled down in a siege. The platoon that had taken the brunt of these attacks on the south side wanted a quieter sector, so we starting playing musical hills. All the transfers took place at night, and although we were in the area for two months, I never returned to the village in daylight. The only time I spent there was what it took to walk through. I was never in the company CP and had no idea where it was located. My runner knew and that was enough. I cannot even remember who the company commander was.”

  As Jordan reported, the salient achieved by the 47th Infantry Regiment provoked furious responses from the other side, and it was obvious that the left flank, extending toward the Stolberg corridor, was vulnerable to an enemy thrust. The 1st Division and associates from the 3d Armored attempted to drive through the Schill belt of defenses and straighten the American line.

  But first the armor and infantry outfits needed to plug a gap between them. Under the direction of CCR (Combat Command Reserve) of the 3d Armored, Maj. Francis Adams headed the 1st Battalion of the infantry, while Lt. Col. William Hogan commanded a tank battalion. They formed a task force with the mission of clearing elements from the Schill Line to enable the VII Corps to reach a desired posture adjacent to the embattled 9th Division troops.

  The Adams-Hogan group hammered through the fortifications at Mossback, southeast of Stolberg, only to hear that a savage enemy counterattack had driven back comrades from the armored infantry, and many of them appeared trapped on a hill at the village of Weissenburg, a mile from the larger town of Diepenlinchen. CCR ordered a rifle company to rescue the beleaguered soldiers. Under Capt. Allan B. Ferry, C Company of the infantry, supported by a tank platoon, set out on the mission.

  At Diepenlinchen, Ferry’s command met a firestorm from German defenders. As darkness fell, Ferry pulled back his forces and, under the cover of night, conducted a reconnaissance that had the virtue of a stealthy approach. To avoid noise that might alert the foe, Ferry left his tanks behind, while just before dawn, he and the foot soldiers worked their way through rock piles along a slope.

  The column neared Weissenburg, and a morning fog lifted to reveal a full company of Germans headed down a trail toward the Americans. Ferry immediately ordered a tactical withdrawal, hoping to negate the enemy’s higher-ground advantage. His lead element prepared to cover the retro movement. Suddenly, from a factory mining complex they had skirted, heavy automatic weapon, artillery, and mortar fire slammed into the GIs. Ferry passed the word that the soldiers should continue their retreat, but he and some companions in the rear were trapped and forced to surrender. Most of the survivors holed up in Diepenlinchen and refused to run up a white flag, although under extreme pressure by Germans who controlled the streets.

  Hogan and Adams immediately struck back. They plotted a twopronged assault to retake Diepenlinchen. Supported by mortars and artillery, they engaged the Germans in house-to-house combat and routed them, taking forty-nine prisoners. In the thick of the battle, an 81mm mortar platoon expended all of its ammunition. Urgent pleas for resupply passed up the chain of command until finally a truckload of the precious ordnance arrived the following day, having been driven from Paris, 200 miles away.

  The victory did not lessen the tenacity of the foe. A day later, as Company B from CCR hammered into the thick walls of a factory area north of Diepenlinchen, furious exchanges occurred amid piles of rock and rubble. Major Adams contacted the regimental commander with the message, “It is recommended that my [battalion] be returned to the unit so that I can get replacements and reequip. My unit has suffered heavy battle casualties, and yesterday and today I am beginning to get men suffering from combat fatigue. As of this A.M. my fighting strength was as follows: A [Company] 99; B-91, C-62, D-86.” He was well below 50 percent of the standard table of organization.

  Adams continued, “I am still attacking today against an objective that is very difficult to take. I shall undoubtedly suffer further heavy casualties today. At the present rate, I am rapidly losing my combat effectiveness. I would like to return to the outfit so that I can get my battalion back in shape.”

  His plea brought no immediate relief. Lieutenant Colonel Hogan, as the senior officer in the task force, ordered Company A paired with a company of his tanks to strike at Weissenburg. As soon as the attackers came out of the woods and into open ground near the village, a storm of enemy fire engulfed them. Hogan said later, “I have never seen such a concentration of German artillery before or since.” The foot soldiers and the armor retreated back to the relative safety of the forest.

  Undeterred, CCB’s commander, Brig. Gen. Truman E. Boudinot, directed the task force to go at Weissenburg from another angle. Hogan demurred, noting he had considered that alternative and rejected it after his personal reconnaissance revealed the ground too soft for his tanks. Boudinot rejected his subordinate’s misgivings and told him to proceed.

  With only sixty-two men left from Company C, whose Captain Ferry had been among those captured in the first abortive attempt to occupy Weissenburg, the deployment followed the route questioned by Hogan. Heavy shelling greeted the GIs and the accompanying four tanks. The soldiers fell back, but the Shermans, just as Hogan feared, bogged down in the mud. The tankers abandoned their vehicles after rendering them useless.

  Boudinot refused to quit. He arranged for a concentrated artillery preparation to precede another attack. While the infantrymen from the 1st Battalion assembled at the edge of the woods, the big guns from all VII Corps artillery within range opened up. Unfortunately, several salvos fell short, resulting in tree bursts that showered the Company A soldiers, who promptly scurried for cover.

  The barrage halted while forward observers attempted to register the artillery for the appropriate distance. After a half-hour delay, the shelling began again, and, in a dismal repeat performance, the explosions walked back toward the GIs, who could only seek protection anew. As if oblivious to what befell their companions on foot, the tanks clattered off on schedule. A burst of cannon fire hit two of them, and a shoulder-fired panzerfaust knocked out a third. Without infantrymen to protect them against this kind of menace, the tanks retired.

  A subsequent analysis of the problems besetting this last sortie revealed that the 105mm self-propelled howitzers committed to the preattack shelling had been stationed in muddy ground. Every time they fired, the recoil sank the rear mount deeper in the mire. The failure to adjust the guns because of these circumstances led to succeeding rounds dropping closer to the American lines.

  Around midnight, Hogan dispatched his tanks to a site where they could blast away at the forest positions of the enemy. The darkness and the surprise nature of the action lessened the opportunity for German foot soldiers to use their antitank rockets. Because the outburst from the Shermans was so unexpected, the armor could withdraw before the enemy responded with counterfire.

  At dawn on 20 September, a murky fog hovered over the ground. Captain Levasseur, the S-3 for the 1st Battalion of the regiment, proposed that, instead of the planned combined assault of tankers and foot soldiers supported by artillery, the troops exploit the poor visibility in an assault with fixed bayonets. He argued that the Germans, after a night of pounding from the tanks and some artillery fire, might not be fully alert.


  Company A moved out quietly on its own and nabbed thirty-three prisoners, many of whom were asleep in their foxholes. The captives mentioned that the American armor in its midnight foray inflicted many casualties. Less encouraging, the interrogations revealed the presence of first-line troops, shifted from East Prussia by railroad and untouched by Allied planes, grounded because of poor flying weather. Furthermore, rather than playing a solely defensive role, the units, from the German 12th Infantry Division, entered the forest with the objective of driving the Americans back from any penetration of the Schill Line.

  Soldiers from the 9th Division relieved the battered, thin ranks of the 1st Battalion of the 1st Division’s infantry. Task Force Hogan shifted to an assembly area near Mossback, and the men received a hot meal and time to sleep. But a day later they prepared to attack Stolberg.

  Sylvan’s diary tersely noted, “Report of bitter house-to-house fighting in Stolberg. Numerous counterattacks, company or battalion size, which were met and repulsed without loss of ground.”

  That success notwithstanding, the American command continued to believe the offensive was jeopardized by the continued and strong presence of the Germans in the Huertgen, from where a flank attack could fall upon the VII Corps. Collins later explained, “We did our best to break through between the Huertgen Forest on my right and the city of Aachen, to break through the Siegfried defenses while there was a chance of doing it. We didn’t succeed because we didn’t have the artillery ammunition for one thing. The air was being pulled off to other missions. It was hard to get as much air support as we would have needed … and we were just stymied. There were second-rate troops in the German defenses, in the Siegfried defense, but don’t let anybody tell you that the Siegfried defenses weren’t formidable.”