“You’ve done it, General,” said Codman, Patton’s personal Adjutant. “You’ve licked them good.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Better interrupt Ike’s breakfast. That withdrawal makes no sense. I want to see if we can get aerial recon flights up at sunrise to see what these bastards are up to.”
1st Armored continued to probe south another three kilometers, until they came up against some of the Panthers and Jagdtigers they had tangled with the previous day… and troops from the 17th SS. That report got Patton’s attention immediately.
“The 17th SS? Hell, that division is strung out from Vise all the way south along the Meuse to Liege. It’s their flank guard for this push north to Maastricht. By God, I think they pulled out. That stuff Prichard just bumped into is nothing but a rear guard.”
Ike came in from the officer’s dining hall and Patton shared the latest intelligence with him. “Are you saying they’re throwing in the towel?” he asked.
“Not likely. That was a very strong concentration of armor. They were taking a pounding from our artillery, but they could have hit us very hard again this morning, and they’re gone—pulled out south before sunrise.”
“Well, where are they headed?”
“There’s only a few good roads behind them, and they all lead south. But the base of this attack widens out east of Herstal near Liege. There’s a good road there through Herve to Aachen….” Patton was thinking fast. “Damnit Ike, Aachen! They didn’t come south towards Sittard this morning either, but the sure as hell rolled everything east against 3rd Armored and 2nd Infantry. If they break through there, it would take them down to Gielenkirchen and Palenberg on the Wurm, and that last town is just five klicks north of the pocket.”
“Then you believe they’re trying tr relieve Aachen?”
“It sure looks that way to me, but we ought to get aerial recon up.”
“Weather looks lousy,” said Ike, “but I’ll order it anyway.”
It had taken three hours, and a little daylight to make the situation clear in Patton’s mind. Now the question was what he was going to do about it.
* * *
At noon the first elements of the Herman Goring Division made their assault through Julich and over the Roer. The river had now subsided to normal flows in that sector, and the division attack was assisted by the battalion of the Reichsführer Division that had been sent to garrison the city weeks ago. That attack left no doubt in Patton’s mind as to what the Germans were now attempting, particularly when news came in that the tough 6th Para Regiment was also pulling out of the hilly Aachen State Forest just south of the city.
The engineer battalion of 4th Infantry Division had been one of the odd units sent to watch the line of the Roer, along with 101st Armored Cavalry Regiment, and the 254th Combat Engineer Battalion. The line from Julich to the confluence of the Wurm and Roer to the northwest was about 20 kilometers, and those forces were in no way adequate to cover that much ground. It was paper thin, and all the fast, hard hitting reserves behind it had been withdrawn to try and stop the German pincers from closing at Maastricht. That they did, but now the Roer line was evaporating. It had relied on the wide flooded river for the last two weeks, but those waters had receded, and there was massive danger looming in the east.
The retreat of 2nd infantry was becoming more desperate, abandoning Heinsberg when those two Tiger battalions maneuvered to the south to try and cut them off. Soon the road south to Gielenkirchen was a disheartened rabble of scattered platoons and companies, all with one thought on their mind—get south, get anywhere, but get away from the Germans. For a veteran division like the 2nd to break like that was a hard thing to see, but it was either that or a quick death beneath the crushing weight of the heavy armor that was rolling their way. Some companies were marching in good order, and others deploying to cover key roads the enemy might be using. But most were just retreating, the fight knocked out of them after what they had endured two days earlier. Few among them wanted a second round with the SS.
It was 7th Armored that saved the hour, rushing east to the town of Waldenrath, where Rosenbaum’s CCA launched an immediate counterattack against the point of 2nd SS in the breakthrough zone. Now the three US Armored divisions held a line from that town all the way west to the Meuse, a distance of about 20 kilometers.
When Colonel Loveless reached Gielenkirchen, he found General Gerow of V Corps there, hopping mad. He ordered any officer he could get his hands on to gather up MPs and get out there and start pulling the regiments together again. “Use you goddamn sidearms if you have to, but this retreat stops here! We’re going to hold this place, and the line of the Wurm.”
The problem Gerow and Loveless would soon face was the fact that Panzer Lehr was already across the Roer at Linnich, and had reached Puffendorf, just five kilometers southwest of Gielenkirchen. They were heading for Palenburg, up river on the Wurm, and the only thing out there trying to stop them was a few companies of engineers from 4th Infantry, and the 101st Armored Cav.
What Patton needed now was something fast to react to the cross river operations on the Roer. He ordered 1st Infantry to extend to watch the river line near Duren, and then pulled CCA of 5th Armored out, which had been left there when Oliver had been ordered to send CCB west two days ago. There was also White’s CCB of 2nd Armored, the unit that had been making the grinding advance into Aachen itself before the German counterattack began. He sent orders to pull them out immediately and join CCA of the 5th for a sweep up towards Julich. That was it, the only mobile reserves with any punch that Patton still had east of Aachen.
“They want to bust out of the pocket,” Patton told Ike. “So I’m going to push a regiment of the 45th south along the Meuse to Vise. The infantry can hold that area, and I’ll start relieving the armored units there. This attack from Julich is going to try to come right in here to the tip of the pocket, and that’s where the SS are headed too. So that becomes the focal point of this whole battle. By tonight everything will be closing in on Palenberg and Gielenkirchen.”
Patton could read a map, but his two combat commands would not get to Julich in time to stop the Germans from pushing across the Roer in force. When 3rd Panzergrenadier Division joined the attack south of the city, CCA of 5th Armored had to deploy there, which left only CCB of 2nd Armored left to try and challenge the full weight of the Hermann Goring Division. They could not attack, and the best they could do was find the holes in the line and try to fill them as the 101st Cav withdrew to the west.
The German plan was working, and at Aachen the time was now ripe for the breakout forces to begin assembling in the north.
* * *
General Simon and the Reichsführer Division was not going to wait. He had resigned himself to the thought that Aachen was now no more than a temporary prison camp for he and his men, but when he learned that Bayerlein was coming, he took heart. The two men had often fought side by side in the long retreat through France. So if Panzer Lehr and the Hermann Goring Division were coming, he would do everything in his power to break out of the trap and reach them.
There was chaos in the city when the movement started. Frightened citizens saw the hardened German soldiers forming up and marching north through the rain swept streets, and their only thought was that something terrible had happened, and the enemy was coming. They were coming out of the cellars where they had hidden the last two weeks, and packing any essential thing they could get their hands on into small carts and wheelbarrows. There were no trucks or vehicles, for all these had been commandeered by the army long ago.
When General Simon saw what was happening, he ordered his Chain Dogs, the traffic police, to force the civilians off the roads and back into the city. They would be forbidden to leave. Some felt they had been betrayed by their own sons, and cast to the mercy of the enemy. Others were secretly glad, for their term of life under Nazi rule was soon about to end. They still had three quarters of a city left, and if the soldiers were gone, that might
be saved, or so they reasoned. The Allied bombers would also stop coming there, and that would be a great blessing. So for them, the marching of the Reichsführer Division north was the best thing that could happen that day.
Chapter 18
It had taken all morning, and most of the afternoon, but the engineers finally got two Baily bridges up across both the Albert Canal and the Meuse near the town of Lanaye, about five kilometers north of Vise. That meant that the 157th Regiment of the 45th Division could cross, and join the buildup near Vise that was now relieving 1st Armored. The first elements of Old Ironsides were already moving northeast towards the pocket, following in the wake of CCA, 2nd Armored. But many companies were reporting shortages of both fuel and ammunition. It had been two days hard fighting to stop the German southern pincer, and the men had little sleep. What they could get was punctuated with the fall of enemy artillery, and the thunder of their own guns in reply.
Steiner’s move southeast had gained about 10 kilometers that day, but 7th Armored had skirted east with them, and remained a well-organized blocking force. It was Panzer Lehr that was gaining the ground, crossing at Linnich and pushing 12 kilometers through the light harrying resistance of the 101st Armored Cav. By midnight, they were approaching Palenberg, and no more than 5 kilometers from the Reichsführer Division. If either of the two attacks would break through to the pocket, Bayerlein now had the best prospects.
* * *
After pulling out and heading south, the Führer Sturm Division had not been engaged that entire day. But at midnight, they were east of Liege on the road to Aachen, and in thick darkness and pouring rain, they decided to launch a surprise attack on the lines of the American infantry between Verviers and Herve. The 8th Infantry Division was still stubbornly holding Verviers, but on its right was the 319th Regiment of the 80th Infantry Division, screening Herve. There had been action to the north of that town, when Abrams collided with the 116th Panzer Division, bringing both units to a grinding halt. German patrols had determined that regiment as ripe for attack, and it would get no sleep that night at all.
The troops had been huddled in muddy fox holes, which they tried to cover with tarps, but the rain kept seeking that lower ground, filling the holes until many had to drag themselves up and simply lie prone in the mud beside that hole in the ground. Then there came the thumping of enemy artillery, and the horizon to the west lit up with the glow of the firing guns. The rounds thumped into the sodden ground, sending those troops slithering back into those flooded fox holes, shivering with both fear and the cold.
The artillery of the adjacent 116th Panzer, the Führer Sturm Division , and the heavy Volkswerfers pounded the line for 30 minutes. As the 4th of September began, with this terrible fire, there came the deep growl of tanks and the rattle of halftracks. Soldiers strained to see what they could now darkly imagine in their mind’s eye, and then the grim reality presented itself in the stark shapes of the heavy tanks, the long barrels of their guns gleaming in the moonlight.
Mortar teams scrambled to start laying down fire, but one found their 60mm mortar tube had simply filled up with water in the rain while they tried to sleep. Someone had forgotten to cap the tube. Bazooka teams tried to get ready, the gunner leaning over the sodden edge of the fox hole, lying low as he shouldered the weapon, his loader crouching in the watery depression behind him. One man reached for his rocket round and found the ammo satchel had slid into a pool of water, completely submerged. Someone started firing a machinegun, but all that did was give away his position. A heavy Königstiger stopped and blasted the position with that new 120mm main gun.
Then hell itself came rolling out of the darkness and rain. 69 Big Cats were sent into that attack, including 15 of Berg’s Leopard II’s, with waves of infantry attacking mounted in halftracks for the breakthrough, and a second line on foot behind them. The 80th “Blue Ridge” infantry Division had already endured this steel hammer when the Germans first launched their offensive three days earlier. It had seen its 317th Regiment overrun, surrounded and destroyed, its 318th Regiment driven into Liege and across the Meuse, and now it seemed that fate wanted to settle accounts with the 319th. The regiment had spent the last two days just staring down a troops of the German 245th Division, and in relative quiet, but this was now a storm of fury descending upon them that they had no chance of stopping.
That massive enemy barrage had chewed up most of the rudimentary minefield they had tried to lay, and the enemy tanks just plowed through the wire like it wasn’t even there. The biggest German tanks were approaching 70 tons, and when they hit the line of fox holes, the sodden earth simply collapsed, crushing the infantry in a wet death in the mud. Those that could get up and stay on their legs in the mud began to fall back, then retreat, leaving mortars and MG positions behind to be crushed under the steel treads of those tanks.
At the same time, the 183rd Combat Engineer Battalion on the left flank of the 8th Infantry also came under attack by 2nd Panzer Division. With that strong attack shaking the line to the west, the Germans were again trying to envelop the defense of Verviers. As always, the American artillery wasn’t sleeping that night either. Truscott had five battalions of his Corps level guns at Clermont, about 7 kilometers behind the point of the enemy attack. Now they answered with thunder in the rain.
* * *
That night the corridor to the Aachen pocket was opened. The American defense had centered on Palenberg and Alsdorf, and between those two towns, a gap approximately three kilometers wide had been established by Lehr at one end, and ‘Himmler’s Boys’ on the other. They met in the center, and General Simon took the occasion to call Bayerlein on the radio.
“You’re late!” he said, the smile in the tone of his voice.
“Ah!” said Bayerlein on the other end of the line. “But better late than never.”
All through the night, Von der Heydt’s elite Paras were the next unit to march in the rain, their columns proud and tight. News was sent quickly to OKW, and the Generals were up early to get the latest map updates and decide how to proceed.
“Rhinelander has met its secondary objective,” said Manstein. “It may take two days, but I think we will now save those 30,000 men. General Simon reports that he has also saved most of his equipment, and all his artillery. This is good news.”
“What now?” asked Jodl. “Do we persist, and if so, how do we define our objectives?”
“I think we are now in a good position to clean up the battlefield,” said Manstein. “There are a number of areas that need attention. The first that comes to mind in the Monschau Gap. It is presently being screened by a single Volksgrenadier division. So I suggest we end this business around Verviers as soon as we can compel the Americans to give up that city. That opens a good road, through Verviers, behind the Lower Hurtgenwald. It would give us better lateral communications. Then I think we can pull 2nd Panzer out of that fight and send it back to the Monschau Gap to tidy things up there.”
“What about the Fuhrer Sturm Division?” asked Guderian.
“They can assist in the Verviers operation, but after that, I would advise pulling them into reserve. They have proven their worth, and having such a sword in hand for a critical moment is very reassuring.”
“As long as they remain here in the West,” Guderian replied. “I would not like to see them sent to the Ostfront .”
“No, I think Steiner must return soon, but we will leave the FSD troops here. And speaking of Steiner, your General Bayerlein won the race to open the Aachen Pocket. That said, I do not think we will want to leave the SS where they are now. Their start line was a much stronger defensive front than their present position, and I see no value in holding the ground they won in this offensive.”
“What?” Jodl was surprised. “You want to give it back?”
“Not until the evacuation of the Aachen Pocket is complete. If Steiner moves now, those three American armored divisions will interfere. After we get our men out, then yes, I think Steiner sho
uld fall back to the start line. After all, signs in the east point to a big new Soviet offensive. I think we should start planning to move the SS there as soon as possible.”
“All five of those divisions?” asked Guderian.
“No, I think three will do, the 1st SS Panzerkorps should be reestablished in the East. That was always the heart of Steiner’s command, so I would send him Leibstandarte and Das Reich . The men won’t like it, being sent to Russia for the winter instead of defending the German frontier here, but they are the more experienced troops, and more reliable. I think we can keep Bittrich in the West, and possibly the 12th SS as well, but it should be placed in reserve. After this, I would suggest we now establish the main line of resistance on the Roer.”
“Why not let Schmaltz continue to push south now,” Guderian suggested. “All reports indicate the defense east of Aachen is not yet strong. We might be able to push them out of there and keep the Schill line.”
“There is one way to know if that is feasible,” said Manstein. “We can try this, and see what we can do.”
“Ironic,” said Jodl. “Patton was attempting to seize Aachen and push up to the Roer. I think he only went into the Hurtgenwald because of our threat to do exactly what we did by opening the sluice gates on those dams. Now, however, that card is played. Here we plan and stage this big offensive, and then find any number of sound and logical reasons to give Patton everything we have just taken from him—and I think we won this battle! Strange that he might now end up holding all the ground he wanted, and Rhinelander was the operation that gave it to him, simply because, no matter how strong we were, we could not destroy him.”
“A cold truth,” said Manstein. “Let us face it, Herr Generals. Yet we have achieved a few good things here. First, we will have another 30,000 men to put on the line of the Roer, and defend the Rhine. Second, the strength of our newly refitted Panzer divisions has not been squandered, I think they will remain good solid units in the months ahead. Third, we have shown them we can still punch, even in the late rounds, and perhaps they will be more cautious now. And lastly, these four or five days hard fighting may have just bought us five weeks respite or more before they can reorganize, resupply, and plan another major offensive. We unhinged all their operations and seized the initiative. In light of all that, I think giving Patton what was left of Aachen is not such a high price to pay for the troops we will save.”
Rhinelander (Kirov Series Book 40) Page 15
