Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II (16 page)

He was escorted back to the schoolhouse, where he told the American lieutenant everything he knew about the robot tank school. In the eyes of the American GIs, he had been completely had. Even his fellow German prisoners laughed at him as he was taken away.

The slow, drizzling rains of the early German autumn continued practically every day. The fields were becoming a quagmire, and it was extremely difficult to do maintenance. A few days after the fall of Aachen, the division trains moved into the city and the maintenance battalion moved into the Engleburt Rubber factory, which had large buildings to be used for shop space and plenty of paved areas. Major Arrington wanted all of the liaison officers to stay in one place so he could find them at a moment’s notice. My buddy Ernie Nibbelink found an excellent spot, which turned out to be the factory’s telephone exchange. Located on a lower level of the main floor, it had heavy reinforced concrete walls and a concrete roof. We felt reasonably safe here and didn’t dig a foxhole. After all this time in the field, we finally moved into a decent building with all the relative comforts of home.

Buildup to the Breakout Through the Siegfried Line

For the first time in four months, the division had a chance to catch its breath. It occupied a narrow front from Stolberg across hill 287 and down through Mausbach. The 9th Division was on our immediate right, and the 4th Infantry Division was south of there in the Hürtgen Forest. The 104th Division had come up on our left flank and relieved the 1st Infantry Division. Although our division occupied a frontline position, it was able to rotate the units periodically and give the combat troops a little chance for rest and recreation.

The buildup was in full swing, and new personnel and equipment replacements arrived daily. Contingents of every artillery and GHQ tank battalion, antiaircraft and tank destroyer units, and all types of supply, maintenance, and ammunition units moved as far forward as possible. The entire area became extremely crowded.

The war in northern Europe, from the landing on the beaches in Normandy to the Siegfried line, had been successful so far. The skilled deployment of infantry, armor, artillery, and airpower made the Saint-Lô breakthrough successful and permitted the armored divisions to exploit the breakthrough in deep, slashing columns across northern France and Belgium and into the Siegfried line defenses in Germany. The assault across northern France became an example of armored warfare exploited to the ultimate state of the art. But as the main weapon of the armored columns, the M4 medium tank resulted in horrendous losses that threw an extra load on the other arms. Only through the combined efforts of our armored infantry, self-propelled artillery, tank destroyer units, and pinpoint bombing by the P47s were our great tank losses partially offset.

The great irony of World War II, as far as the campaign in northern Europe was concerned, was becoming only too apparent. Perhaps the most powerful ground force ever assembled, backed up by powerful strategic and tactical air forces, was being frustrated and taking horrendous losses because its main assault weapon, the M4 medium tank, was vastly inferior to its enemy counterpart. This forced a basic change in the application of our Armored Force Doctrine, which had been so brilliantly conceived a number of years before. Because of our inferior main battle tank we could not utilize this doctrine to its fullest capability.

Armored Force Doctrine was based on two separate and distinct types of armored tactical units. Each unit was organized, equipped, and deployed in the field to accomplish a separate mission.

The GHQ Tank Battalion was normally attached to an infantry division and supported it in assaults on fortified positions. The original thinking was to have the GHQ Tank Battalions equipped with a heavy assault tank with sufficient frontal armor to enable it to resist enemy antitank fire. The Germans had long since recognized this need and had developed turretless versions of their Mark IV, Mark V, and Mark VI tanks. Without the extra weight of the turret mechanism, heavier armor could be provided. The assault version of the PzKw VI, known as the
Jagdtiger
(Hunting Tiger) had a 128mm high-velocity antitank gun and 13 inches of frontal armor and weighed approximately 64 tons. This was twice the weight of our M4 and it was obvious to us that the M4 was not even remotely in the same ballpark as this awesome monster.

An American heavy tank had been developed in the early years of the war, but it was soon abandoned and all efforts were concentrated on the M26 Pershing. Patton’s recommendation to concentrate instead on the M4, because we needed a fast medium tank and because tanks were not supposed to fight tanks anyway, was a disastrous decision based on inflexible military thinking. Patton was the ranking Armored Force commander and had an extreme flair for getting his way.

Patton’s view was opposed by the combat commanders who had served under him in North Africa, and to even the most inexperienced second lieutenant tank platoon leader it was obvious that if our Armored Force Doctrine said that tanks were not supposed to fight tanks, the Germans would do just the opposite and oppose our tanks with their heavier tanks whenever possible. Even though this policy had been reversed by General Eisenhower when he saw our terrible losses in Normandy, it was too little too late, and we still had not received any M26 heavy tanks by early November 1944, though they were desperately needed.

The armored division was a highly mobile, self-contained arms unit capable of ranging deeply behind enemy lines for at least three days without additional supplies. Once a breakthrough had been made by the infantry and GHQ tank battalions, the armored division could penetrate deeply behind enemy lines. Even though the Armored Force Doctrine said that the armored division should avoid enemy tanks where possible, the original planner certainly would have insisted that the division be equipped with tanks equal to or superior to the enemy tanks, should the occasion arise for them to engage each other. The idea that the M4 should be given preference over the M26 because of its superior speed was a great fallacy. Although the M26 Pershing outweighed the M4 Sherman by some 15 tons, its 550-horsepower motor compared to the 400-horsepower motor of the Sherman gave it a higher horsepower per ton ratio and thus an equal or greater speed on the highway. In addition, its longer wheelbase and wider track gave it a ground bearing pressure approximately half that of the M4. This bearing pressure was similar to that of the German tanks and made it much more maneuverable in open country.

Though lacking an adequate main battle tank, the armored division was often called on to perform the missions that would normally have been assigned to a GHQ tank battalion. Besides lacking an adequate assault tank, the GHQ tank battalions apparently had insufficient training in combined operations with infantry. The armored division had its own armored infantry and was accustomed to working with it in a symbiotic relationship where each depended on the other. This made for an excellent working relationship, when a combat command was attached to an infantry division or a regimental combat team from an infantry division was attached to an armored division.

As the buildup neared completion in early November 1944, it was obvious that another massive breakthrough was being planned. General Eisenhower had observed that if the Germans attempted to take a defensive stand with the narrow Rhineland and the Rhine River to their rear, they were taking a serious risk. With our great air superiority, the Rhine crossings could be neutralized and the Germans trapped on the west bank of the river.

There were, however, several reasons for the Germans to take this position. The Siegfried line was still virtually intact and had been penetrated deeply by the First Army only in the Aachen-Stolberg area. A large percentage of German electric power came from the steam-driven, brown coal-fired electric utility plants on the Rhine Plain between Bonn, Cologne, and Düsseldorf. The loss of these plants would be a major disaster to the German war effort. Unknown to us, the Germans needed the Rhineland to launch their planned Ardennes campaign. In addition, the Germans, particularly Hitler, saw the invasion and occupation of German soil as anathema.

It had rained practically every day and the ground was saturated, making movement by tanks and other armored vehicles extremely difficult. The inability of our medium tanks to negotiate soft ground had been recognized some time before, and field service modification kits had been sent forward to be installed on the tanks.

The kits consisted of three-inch-wide steel grousers, which were attached to the track connectors on each track block on both sides. This gave an overall width of twenty inches compared to thirty to thirty-six inches on German tank tracks. I contacted Dick Johnson with the 33d Maintenance and arranged to have their supply truck pick up the boxes of grousers at the ordnance battalion headquarters company. The grousers finally got down to the tank crews, who installed them on their own tanks.

The tank crews were enthusiastic about the grousers, which did help somewhat, but the ground was so completely saturated that the grousers only partially solved the problem. Our tanks still got stuck easily. The problem was that the grousers were designed so they did not come in full contact with the ground until the tank had already penetrated the outer crust. Thus, the breakthrough of the crust had already occurred and the tank could still sink down further due to the shearing action. I’d venture to say that the fields around Kornelimünster, Mausbach, and Breinig are still filled with leftover grousers and spare locknuts.

Our front line between Stolberg and Mausbach extended across the top of hill 287. On top of the hill was a German pillbox we had captured and used as an observation post. From an open-top concrete bunker adjacent to the pillbox, we could observe the back slope of the hill. The German frontline positions were seventy-five yards down the slope and east of the pillbox.

During this two-month lull, the buildup continued on both sides, although the view from this frontline position gave little evidence of it. There were often exchanges of small-arms and mortar fire. In the intervening times between these firefights, the whole area was relatively calm.

Looking down the hill from the bunker, we could see a roadway running roughly parallel to our front line and connecting the small villages in the valley below. They had obviously been evacuated of all German civilians, although we occasionally saw cattle grazing in the valley. This pastoral scene would be rudely interrupted when one of the cows would suddenly explode. There were mines all over the area, and whenever a cow blew up the forward observers would try to pinpoint it on the map. From the frequency and randomness of the explosions, it was apparent that numerous minefields were scattered throughout this entire area.

Between our lines and the German lines and about a hundred yards north of the pillbox was a large slag dump. A small clump of trees stood at the bottom of the forward slope and the dump. A German infantry company had taken cover in these trees and come under heavy artillery fire. The point detonating fuses on the 105mm howitzer shells were set off when they struck the tree branches, and the midair explosion caused the troops on the ground to get the full effect of the blast. About 150 bodies were piled up under the trees, and numerous bodies were scattered across the crest of the hill and down the slope behind the German lines. Some of the bodies had been there for two months, and the stench from them was terrible.

I received a new Jeep to replace the one that had been damaged by shell fire at Raeren. I also got a new driver. Vernon received a well-deserved rest, then was transferred back to C Company.

My new driver, a young soldier named White, was vigorous and enthusiastic about his job. He could hardly wait to get to the front line and see all the excitement. I explained that his job was to take care of the Jeep and keep it ready to move on a moment’s notice twenty-four hours a day. Combat was not glamorous; our job was to keep a low profile. There would be plenty of excitement to go around.

When Vernon transferred back to C Company, he took our little dog Bitch with him, because they were attached to each other by now. In the four months we’d had her, she had matured rapidly. She soon met many German boy dogs, became pregnant, and had a large litter. Vernon gave the puppies to many of his buddies in C Company. I’m sure that her progeny are scattered throughout western Germany and did their share in cementing long-term German-French relations.

The first time I took White forward, we went to the pillbox on hill 287. I wanted to talk to the forward observer and get some idea where the mines were located, because I knew that when the attack started, our tanks would eventually have to go through this area. We left the Jeep about a hundred yards west of the crest of the hill and proceeded on foot. I told White to stay inside the pillbox to avoid the occasional random shells that fell near there. He could look through the vision slots on the back side of the pillbox to see what was going on and keep an eye on the Jeep.

The artillery observer was out on the open parapet with his battery commander’s (BC) scope looking down the valley toward the German positions. He had his maps out and was marking targets as I approached him.

We saw some movement about a quarter mile down the forward slope of the hill. Three white objects were moving among the German positions; upon close examination through his scope, we saw that they were German medics. They wore large, stolelike white vestments that covered their chests and backs completely and were stuffed into their belts. Red crosses approximately eighteen inches high were on both the front and back of the vestments, and their helmets were solid white with red crosses front and back. This garb gave them much greater visibility than our medics had; they wore only armbands with small red crosses and helmets with red crosses painted in white circles on both sides.

The German medics moved freely from one foxhole to the next tending to the wounded. Our artillery observer made no attempt to fire on them as long as they were exposed. I’m not sure the Germans had the same respect for our Red Cross. I remember too well when the Germans fired on the clearly marked half-track ambulance back in Villers-Cotterêts, killing all aboard.

Suddenly, there was a tremendous explosion on the earth mound right behind us. We both hit the deck immediately. I remember feeling a tug at the back of my combat jacket as I fell down. An incoming 81mm mortar shell had struck the parapet behind us. I reached over my shoulder to see if I’d been hit and discovered that my right shoulder epaulet on my combat jacket had been severed by one of the flying mortar fragments. With the exception of being dazed for a few minutes, I was unharmed. Although I could not hear what the artillery observer was saying, I could tell by the expression on his face that he was also okay.

I returned to the bunker and stuck my head inside to tell White we were getting ready to leave, but he was not there. One of the men inside said he had left a few minutes ago and thought he’d gone back down the hill to the Jeep. I looked around but didn’t see him anywhere. I continued to call his name, without any response. After several minutes I saw a lone figure emerge around the south side of the pillbox. It was White all right, and he was carrying a rusty M1 rifle covered with mud. I explained that he had not only exposed himself unnecessarily but had jeopardized the lives of our infantrymen dug in around the pillbox. Because he was only seventy-five yards from the German front lines, he could have easily been killed and drawn fire on our other positions in the vicinity.