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

by Gerald Astor

  Although the counterattack was ultimately rebuffed after the 3d Battalion arrived to reinforce its brother unit, when the day ended, the 109th held an uneasy, fragile line. Nor was there substantial progress by the 110th Infantry operating in the woods to the south. Ed Uzemack said, “We spent the night in previously dug foxholes after being instructed to prepare to move out at dawn with only light combat packs. It was still fairly dark when we moved into an orchard and spread out. Despite orders not to, we lit cigarettes and smoked them with cupped hands to shield the glow. Suddenly, all hell broke loose. The Jerries had zeroed in on the orchard and were lobbing mortar shells and artillery fire in a continuous barrage that lasted about forty-five minutes.

  “The green replacements suffered the heaviest casualties. More than half were killed or wounded. The veterans were calling to the men to keep their heads down and follow as they crawled toward the direction from which most of the shellfire originated. Although my newshawk instinct was to look and see what was going on, my many weeks of infantry training, some of it under live ammunition fire, reminded me to do as the veterans commanded. Unfortunately, not all of the replacements had similar training before being shipped overseas.

  “A GI crawling ahead of me had both his legs blown off by a shell that landed on his limbs. Another shell hit so close to me that I could feel the heat on one side of me as it exploded and my ear buzzed. I kept crawling toward where I thought the shells were coming from and eventually left the orchard with the survivors, mostly combat vets. A sergeant told me to round up the guys who had come with me as replacements. I told him I didn’t even know who the hell they were, but I would do my best. Somehow I managed to find about half a dozen totally frightened replacements, and suddenly I realized I was just as scared as they were. But that morning we became combat vets.”

  Jerry Alexis explained, “Company A and C led the attack astride the road toward Simonskall, and we followed in reserve. We immediately came under artillery fire from the vicinity of Schmidt as we double-timed down the open road between farmers’ fields. Company A had the mission of knocking out pillboxes 764 a and b [so designated on a map], but casualties were so heavy, not only from the bunkers, but also from small-arms fire from the dense woods on either side of the road, that the attack failed the first day. We spent the night there until the attack continued the next morning. It took another day before Company A captured the pillboxes and continued down the road to Simonskall, with still more pillboxes to neutralize. Company C moved south along the Raffelsbrand ridge, while my Company B peeled off north at the horseshoe bend and dug in.”

  Over the next few days, the 28th Division infantrymen maintained a largely static front, digging in so close to the enemy at times both could hear the other’s entrenching tools crunching into the dirt and even exchanged words that would be followed in a few hours by grenades and small-arms fire. Confined to their soggy foxholes, wet and cold, the GIs, protected only by ponchos and lacking blankets, shivered in the frigid weather. Unable to move about freely because of the risk from snipers, artillery, or mortars, their shoes soaking up water, they could not practice the hygiene of clean, dry socks and massage of toes, and the World War I malady of trench foot began to afflict the troops.

  On the night of 4–5 November, Alexis recalled, “My partner and I were assigned to the extreme left flank as an outpost there. By now it was dark and we took turns on watch.

  “When the dawn arrived, we discovered that we and the GIs in the adjacent hole had been left alone—evidently the company had moved out and forgotten us. Replacements meant so little that we were never really integrated into the unit with the rapid turnover in squads and platoons from the terrific casualties being sustained in the Huertgen. The only smart thing to do, it seemed to us, was to go back in the direction from which we had come the day before.

  “Scared almost out of our wits, not knowing where the enemy was, and bewitched by the foreboding woods, we carefully made our way back by following some phone lines we had found. Eventually, we reached the forward command post of the regiment, where we were drafted by the intelligence and reconnaissance platoon leader, Lieutenant Lacey. He took me on as one of his bodyguards, while he cruised around the lines trying to find out what was going on. The others became part of Task Force Lacey—his platoon and other stragglers—which had been assigned to take over the position Company B had left.”

  While Cota ordered the 110th’s 1st Battalion to move to Vossenack, the 3d Battalion, with mortar squad leader Al Burghardt, remained in the woods facing a road that ran from Richelskaul to Raffelsbrand, an area infested with pillboxes. Burghardt recalled, “K Company was to advance 1,000 yards, hold, and dig in. I was to follow with the mortar section. The attack gained a hundred yards or so and was stopped cold by hidden pillboxes and German artillery. There were many casualties and the objective was not gained. The mortar section didn’t move.”

  The Wehrmacht juggernaut retired to regroup around 1600 hours. Astonishingly, only an hour earlier, division headquarters blithely ordered the GIs, frantically digging in to preserve themselves and stop the counterattack, to retake Schmidt. That absurdity occurred even though the assistant division commander, Brigadier General Davis, had come to the command post for the battle at Kommerscheidt to confer with the regimental leader, Lt. Col. Carl Petersen, and his battalion heads. Davis saw the conditions first-hand—the state of the troops and their equipment—before advising division headquarters. He remained overnight in a cellar before returning to Cota’s CP.

  At First Army, the grim news pricked the bubble of anticipated success. “The Gen. did not leave his CP today,” wrote Sylvan, “but spent most of his time in the war room and also in G-3, following the corps attack closely. Things did not go very well. The 3d Bn. of 112th was counterattacked, and at 10 o’clock withdrew almost a mile to the vicinity of Kommerscheidt. Early yesterday afternoon after a heavy art. concentration and air bombardment was placed on Schmidt, the 3d Bn. attempted to regain the village, but this attack was met by a counterattack of a bn of infantry with a dozen tanks. Our progress toward Schmidt at nightfall was only about 300 yards. Reports from Gen. Gerow to Gen. Hodges this evening are to the effect that the 3d Bn. suffered very heavy casualties. Some progress was made by 109th Inf. 2d and 3d Bn. toward village of Huertgen area. Progress was slow because of numerous mines and accurate art. fire.”

  A critical problem remained the single torturous route from Germeter to Vossenack that bedeviled Fleig’s tankers. Repair crews struggled to fix the damaged Shermans, while engineers, hampered by the presence of the armor, labored to improve the trail. Not only did the besieged troops at the front desperately need the armor, they also required fresh infusions of ammunition, food, and other supplies, all of which were blocked by the disabled tanks. Sporadic German artillery rounds disrupted the work.

  Five Weasels, towing quarter-ton trailers loaded with the necessities for continuing the fight, reached the impasse shortly after dark. Only by pushing several of the damaged tanks into the gorge could the Weasels, which encountered their own problems of lost tracks, maneuver forward. They arrived in Vossenack at dawn.

  John Marshall, a crewman on the Sherman named Bea Wain (a popular singer of the 1940s), remembered moving deeper into the Huertgen. “It was late afternoon [on 4 November and] through the trees we could see the hilly countryside and buildings. We dug our trench. As we were going to back our tank over it, Mike Kozlowski, our tank commander, was summoned to a meeting of all tank commanders and officers. We waited for Mike to return.

  “We had just dug a trench wide enough for two men to sleep in, side by side. We would then drive our tank so that the tracks would straddle it—giving protection to whoever may be in it. All of us then would get a chance to stretch our legs as we rotated sleeping under the tank. However, we decided to leave the tank where it was and spent the night in the tank. Two soldiers asked us if they could have the trench, which we gladly said they could.

  “When M
ike returned he seemed upset and told us, ‘We move out tomorrow.’ We asked him, ‘Out to where? What are we to expect? How far away are the Krauts?’ Unknown to us, the Krauts were already among us. ‘Will we be fighting with others? If so, who are they?’ Mike was embarrassed and frustrated because he could not tell us more. ‘That’s all they [the officers] told me.’ We thought what a senseless way to lay out lives on the line not being informed.

  “Mac [Leonard McKnight, the gunner] said he was going to fix something to eat and pulled out a Bunsen burner to light and heat some food for all of us. The sly fox did not bury all the bread, jelly, soup, and cheese as we had been ordered yesterday. He had squirreled some of it from sight in a 75mm shell cavity. Mike reminded us it was against regulations to light one of those up inside a tank, especially one carrying 125 gallons of gasoline. Mac looked at Mike and smiled, ‘If I’m going to get killed tomorrow, at least for tonight I’m not going to be cold and hungry.”

  Members of the crew climbed out of the tank, unfolded a large canvas tarpaulin, and tied the corners to trees just over the tank. It acted as a roof to keep out rain, while the hatch remained open for ventilation without shedding light for German observers.

  “We had just come back into the tank when, about 2300, the Germans saturated the area with heavy shelling, aerial bursts that exploded at treetop height to send shrapnel down into tank hatches and foxholes. After a tremendous explosion rocked the tank, we ate in silence, knowing a shell had killed those two 110th infantrymen. It had landed directly in the trench, leaving nothing but a few body parts and a shredded overcoat.”

  Earlier, in Kommerscheidt, the area of the 112th Infantry’s 1st Battalion aid station had become a center for supply deposits and assembly of troops. German artillery observers from their elevated perch spotted the activity and soon blanketed the site, hitting not only the combat-potential equipment and GIs but also injuring patients and killing medics. Battalion surgeon Linguiti, disturbed by the concentration of materials that brought shelling on his aid station, abandoned the site and transferred the work to the log bunker chosen by Lieutenant Muglieti.

  During the evening, many Germans infiltrated the area. At three in the morning, a German private banged on the entrance to the dugout and summoned a noncom. One of the American personnel spoke German and explained that they were treating the wounded. The Germans asked if they had enough food and promised to bring more rations and German medics. However, the GIs were not to leave the dugout and a guard was posted on the door. Throughout the night, German patrols passed nearby, but at daylight the sentry at the entrance disappeared.

  Preston Jackson had been busy, scurrying between the battalions of the 112th in the vicinity of Schmidt and Kommerscheidt. “There was no way we could hold onto Schmidt. Because of that narrow Kall Valley, we couldn’t bring up enough armor to support the men when they counterattacked. An infantry soldier just can’t beat a tank. We took a lickin’ every day we were there.”

  8

  DEFEAT DEEPENS

  That first week of November, the demarcation between “them” and “us” could only be described as fluid, changing so swiftly that combatants, unaware of who occupied what and where, frequently blundered into one another, as exemplified by events at the aid station in a dugout near the Kall River.

  “Mass confusion” is how Alexis described the situation of the 28th. “Its commanders and staff tried to learn what was happening to the units in the hell that was Huertgen. When we tried to move down the fire lanes in the woods, we discovered they had become machine gun fire lanes for the Germans. When we tried to go directly through the thick evergreen and deciduous woods, we either got lost or artillery tree bursts took their toll. The rain and snow made mudholes of our foxholes and that, combined with the cold and our lack of adequate footwear, began a rising tide of evacuees from trench foot and respiratory illnesses. The dirt roads became foot-deep in mud, which made them virtually impassable to all vehicles except the full-track, M29 Weasels, which also served as ambulances. The steep hillsides wore us out both going up and coming down as we tried to advance. It isn’t any wonder that combat fatigue resulted in many of those exposed to all these horrible conditions.”

  At First Army headquarters, on 5 November, the lack of success prompted Hodges to “tour the front,” in Sylvan’s words. “Beyond CP of 28th at Rott met Gen. Cota … to see the tough time the bloody bucketeers were having.” The 28th Division, with its keystone shoulder patch, because of its high number of casualties, had already earned the nickname, “the bloody bucket.” Cota apprised Hodges of limited progress, a 300-yard gain by the 110th over heavily wired defenses and a few pillboxes cracked. Although the 112th bulked up with fourteen tanks and fourteen TDs, it could move no closer to Schmidt and struggled to hold its ground. The 109th maintained the position that it achieved two days earlier. The village of Huertgen itself was heavily attacked by bombers after enemy tanks were spotted in the area. The brief summary of the situation gives no hint of the savagery endured by both sides around Kommerscheidt. Cota ordered the 112th to renew that attack toward Schmidt without delay, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it was the Americans who were barely hanging on in the face of almost incessant attaćks by the Germans.

  Fleig, with three tanks and a handful of tank destroyers that manaģed to move up on one of the narrow muddy roads through the forest, dueled with the enemy armor. The morning ended with the attempt to oust the GIs from the town denied, but the bodies continued to pile up. In the afternoon, five more tanks from Company A of the 707th joined Fleig and his trio to defend the flanks of Kommerscheidt. The thin line of defenders in their foxholes and in the crumbled buildings feared most the advance of enemy armor. A flight of P-47s caught one enemy tank in the open and demolished it. Even with the additional Shermans on hand and the 893d tank destroyers, positions around Kommerscheidt remained static.

  Prospects around Vossenack appeared equally dismal. The 112th, 2d Battalion, clung to the exposed high ground of the ridge and cringed under intensive enemy shelling. It was difficult to believe that the foe suffered from any shortage of ordnance. Self-propelled guns and tanks hurled as many as twenty to thirty rounds at a single foxhole before focusing their attention on another target. Enemy patrols, which the GIs believed presaged a new attack, frequently sifted through the woodsy cover. One company commander, Lt. Melvin R. Barrileaux, just returned from a pass to Paris, visited his platoons after dark and found the men so distraught that he felt all should be evacuated for combat fatigue. Some had to be ordered by a platoon leader to eat. The members of the other companies were in no better shape. The battalion commander, Lt. Col. Theodore Hatzfield, officially was still in charge, but his emotional state was such that his executive officer carried out the major command functions.

  At 5:45 in the morning, 6 November, B Company tanks of the 707th trundled toward Vossenack to relieve C Company, reduced to only seven functioning Shermans. In Bea Wain, driver John Alyea remembered moving slowly toward the town with infantrymen alongside. “We fired one round of high explosives at a building. I was taking orders from the tank commander and the bow gunner, assistant driver John Marshall was firing rounds of .30 caliber toward enemy positions. Noise was at a high level. We were buttoned down, the hatch closed. I had a small periscope to see through, two inches by six inches when raised, and could mainly see only straight ahead. In one instant, I was seeing all the action, infantry moving toward the enemy and then seeing them fall from mortar shrapnel and small-arms fire by the Germans. This lasted maybe fifteen minutes, and then the [tank commander] got orders to withdraw.”

  Said Marshall, “It wasn’t quite daylight yet, and we traveled several hundred feet, when Mike leaned out of the turret to ask two infantrymen from the 110th a question. With my hatch closed I watched the men’s expressions through my periscope. They were less than two feet away. They were dirty, tired, scared—I did not realize that they had been there for over a week before we arrived, clean and fed
. At this moment, there was a tremendous explosion as a heavy mortar hit our tank between the two front hatches. I was crushed with a strange numbness from the concussion. Although I had blood in my mouth, my nose was bleeding, and I was temporarily deaf, I was not wounded. I was alive. I looked over at our driver, John Alyea, and he was staring straight ahead as in a trance, but I concluded that he was not hurt either. I removed the shattered periscope and replaced it with a spare and peered out. All that remained of the two soldiers was a leg with the shoe still on, a head bared to the skull, and a shredded overcoat. I tried to believe this was a bad dream, until I heard someone faintly calling me as though he were miles away in a cave. It was Mac, Leonard McKnight, our gunner, telling me, ‘Mike got it and needs help.’ I crawled back to him in the turret. As I tried to make him comfortable, I could see that his chest was torn from his body. I dumped all the [sulfa] powder we had on his wound. His last words to me were, ‘Don’t kid me, how bad am I?’ I answered, ‘You won’t be able to write for a while but you will be okay.’ He died before I finished the sentence.”

  Alyea believed, “When Mike got word to withdraw, he raised too far out of the turret, according to our gunner McKnight, to try to get the infantry to withdraw. It was then a piece of shrapnel hit him. I did not see Mike again. The tank driver stayed with the tank, and the rest of the crew tried to get him out of the turret and on the ground for the medics.”

  “The shelling continued,” said Marshall, “exploding so close that mud came into the tank like rain but no direct hits. We turned the tank around and went back to the aid station. It was a pitiful scene, two men carrying a dead man; a couple of severely wounded men helping each other. They say, ‘Men don’t cry,’ but they do, whether it’s from frustration, hopelessness, or pain—men do cry.