Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II (23 page)

Return to Aachen

On February 7, the division moved back to occupy Aachen, Stolberg, Mausbach, Werth, and Hastenrath, areas we had so bitterly fought over back in November. In the meantime, the 104th Infantry Division had consolidated this area and driven up to the west bank of the Roer River at Düren.

The maintenance battalion moved back to the Engleburt Rubber factory in Aachen, where we had buildings and plenty of paved areas to do maintenance. When we got there, the liaison group made a mad dash for the telephone exchange. With its heavy concrete walls and roof, it was obviously the safest place in the factory.

The weather had cleared up considerably. Even though the rains made the fields muddy, it was still better than the snow and slush of Belgium. Many of the tanks were bivouacked in the muddy fields surrounding the small villages, but the maintenance company of the 33d Armored Regiment had moved back into Mausbach, where there were many paved areas in the middle of the village. Although the division was still within enemy artillery range, the Germans were apparently trying to conserve their ammunition in preparation for our upcoming offensive.

The headquarters building of the Engleburt Rubber factory was posh even by German standards. The largest tire manufacturing company in Germany, it had been working around the clock making tires for German combat vehicles and trucks. Because of this continuous operation, the company provided elaborate living quarters for its top executives. It had a beautiful paneled dining room complete with linen napkins and tablecloths, crystal, and sterling silver flatware. There were adjoining bedroom-and-bath facilities.

The liaison group arrived back at Engleburt before the rest of the headquarters company, so my buddies Lincoln and Lucas made a quick emergency requisition for tablecloths, crystal, and silver flatware. Having lived there before the Ardennes campaign, we knew about these elaborate facilities and wanted to make sure that they were shared with the liaison group before Colonel McCarthy and Major Lawrence could claim the entire layout.

By this time, we had obtained one of the giant blowtorches that came with each German tank. Apparently, the low-octane fuel made the big V8 Maybach engines extremely difficult to start in cold weather. The Germans used these torches to preheat the manifold prior to starting up. They had to be careful doing this; they could set the tank on fire if there was the slightest fuel leak.

The blowtorches, which we took from any shot-up German tank we found, made good trading material; they were in much demand as a source of heat. We could fire one up and shoot a flame about three inches in diameter and ten feet long. The flame would heat a room in a matter of seconds, especially if the flame was oscillated back and forth. Living fairly high on the hog, the liaison group felt well fixed for the time being.

Trading with the Enemy

The factory also held a cache of German schnapps and good French wines. The liaison group made sure they got their share. One evening after an elaborate meal, we decided to explore the building further. It was a split-level in the area near the telephone exchange. Our quarters were partly above- and partly belowground. Below us were at least two levels of sub-basement with heavy reinforced concrete floors and walls. The building itself was a natural fortress. In one of the lower-level basement rooms, we discovered many German file cases. Some of them were marked with what we thought was the German equivalent of “confidential.” This naturally tweaked our curiosity and we immediately opened them and started examining the contents. As ordnance officers, we had been instructed to be on the lookout for intelligence on enemy industrial technology.

I was stunned by the contents. Correspondence and documents between English firms and Engleburt, dated from 1940 through 1943, indicated that business went on as usual. All correspondence was in both English and German, attached together in the same file. It was obvious that the Germans and English were placing orders and transferring checks and money, apparently through Swiss banks. I was shocked to find out there were English businessmen dealing as merchants of blood when their own soldiers plus their American allies were engaged in a desperate fight for their lives. We reported these findings to Colonel McCarthy. After checking them out, he notified G5 (military government), which in turn instructed us to impound the documents until further notice.

A few days later, a lone German civilian came to headquarters and asked to see the commanding officer. Although he was shabbily dressed, as most civilians were at that time, his bearing and manner suggested that he was well educated. He told Colonel McCarthy that he had orders from G5 to get the records in the basement.

Colonel McCarthy smelled a rat and immediately detained the man. He called G5, which sent a couple of MPs to take the man away. We speculated that he might have been one of the ex-Engleburt executives trying to get hold of the records and destroy them before they could be turned over to a war-crimes commission. I never knew the final outcome of this matter, as we turned over all records to G5 when we left Engleburt.

The Western Front: February 1, 1945

The Allied armies occupied virtually the same positions we had on December 16, prior to the Battle of the Bulge. The dams on the upper reaches of the Roer River had finally been captured, and the flooding caused by the damaged control valves on the dams had now subsided. We were preparing for the final assault on Germany.

Rumors about strategy flew, particularly among the junior-grade officers. The general plan called for an advance along the entire front. The main effort was to be made by the 21st Army Group across the Rhine River, north of the Ruhr Valley. The First Army was to cover the southern flank of the 21st Army Group’s Ninth Army, and the Third Army would in turn cover our southern flank. The 6th Army Group would consolidate the Saar area and the upper Rhine.

We all knew that the Germans had suffered a terrible defeat in the Battle of the Bulge, although not without horendous losses to our side. We also knew that the Russians on the eastern front had taken the major brunt of the war so far, although there had been little activity there for some time. It appeared now that the Russians finally were beginning to get things going.

Much of what went on during this time didn’t make much sense to the junior officers. The real esprit de corps of a good outfit is based largely on the faith that the younger soldiers have in commanders. In the 3d Armored Division, that faith was well placed. We had, with a few exceptions, an excellent officer corps.

Although we did not know it at the time, considerable friction existed between General Eisenhower and Field Marshal Montgomery. The Combined Chiefs had already decided that Montgomery and his 21st Army Group would make the major effort in the north. Somewhat reluctantly, Eisenhower went along with these plans. General Bradley and his officers resented Montgomery’s arrogance and felt they had made the main effort since Normandy.

The senior Allied commanders ranged from one extreme to the other. Montgomery was conservative and would hesitate to attack until he had overwhelming superiority. He was also arrogant and was constantly trying to build up the importance of his 21st Army Group. On the other end of the spectrum was the extremely aggressive Patton, who believed in attacking at the first opportunity. He was really in his element when his armored columns could range far and wide in exploiting a major breakthrough. However, he had little patience with infantry assault operations, and when he was not immediately successful he became frustrated.

General Bradley had actually served as Patton’s subordinate in Sicily; however, Bradley’s tactical brilliance and steady judgment had caused Eisenhower to select him to command the 12th Army Group. Under Bradley, Gen. Courtney Hodges of First Army had served as an enlisted infantryman in World War I and had later gone to West Point. Through his hard-bitten determination, he advanced through the ranks to become an army commander. Although he had none of Patton’s flamboyance, his steady judgment earned him the unyielding loyalty and respect of his subordinates. Hodges, more than any other army commander, understood the use of armored divisions and infantry divisions reinforced with GHQ tank battalions and how each could be used to maximum advantage. Always unassuming and never pushing for undue publicity, Hodges had a combat record that was unequalled or little understood by the general public.

One of the cardinal principles in warfare is that the units that are opposed by the most powerful enemy units suffer the greatest casualties. At the same time, if they are successful, they can also inflict the maximum casualties on the enemy. The First Army suffered more casualties than any other American army and inflicted the greatest casualties on the Germans. It was also responsible for the capture of the greatest number of German prisoners.

General Simpson’s Ninth Army was activated in September 1944 from a cadre of battle-hardened divisions from First Army. It was part of the 12th Army Group until the Battle of the Bulge, then was assigned to Field Marshal Montgomery’s 21st Army Group. General Devers’s 6th Army Group, with the American Seventh Army and the French First Army, had landed on the southern coast of France and driven northward to the Saar region and the Vosges Mountains. The French First Army did a good job when actually concentrating on fighting the Germans. Its commanders were so concerned about the French place in history that they were often involved in political disputes with both Devers and Eisenhower.

Ordnance Problems

The buildup for the final assault was now proceeding rapidly. I spent a great deal of time going back and forth between the Engleburt factory in Aachen and the maintenance company of the 33d Armored Regiment at Mausbach. One day in Mausbach, Maj. Dick Johnson told me that a tank from the 2d Battalion was having difficulty in keeping 75mm rounds in the main ammunition storage box underneath the turret. He said this condition had appeared in other tanks before, and no one knew what was causing it.

The ammunition was stored in the racks with the projectile to the rear and the cartridge case sticking out the front for easy removal. Small, spring-loaded metal clips engaged the rim of the cartridge and kept the round in place. For some reason the rounds were dislodging when the tank stopped. If the primer happened to strike a sharp object, the rounds could explode prematurely.

The main ammunition rack was a fabricated aluminum box approximately three feet wide, two feet high, and three feet deep. It had a series of three-inch longitudinal tubes nested together in several rows to accommodate thirty-four rounds of 75mm tank ammunition. Although the ammunition box was enclosed in quarter-inch armor plate with split-type doors down the front, the rim clips were supposed to hold the ammunition in the rack with the doors open.

The maintenance crew hadn’t checked this out very well, because the trouble was obvious once I got inside the tank and examined the front of the rack. This particular tank had thirty rounds of 75mm tank ammunition and four bottles of Cognac. The tank crew had decided that this was a good place to store their extra Cognac. The diameter of the bottle of Cognac was slightly larger than that of the ammunition. There was enough clearance in the tube to allow the bottle of Cognac to go in, but not without stretching the clips beyond their yield point. The weakened clips would no longer hold a round of ammunition. The crew had apparently removed the Cognac and replaced the 75mm ammunition in time for another inspection, but the day I came they were not expecting an ordnance inspection. We replaced the clips and corrected the condition.

When confronted, the crew defended their actions. “This ammunition is no damn good anyway against a German tank. If the going got too rough, we could hide behind a building and break out the Cognac and at least ease some of the pain.”

I couldn’t help but realize the tragic irony of what they said. The crew was reprimanded by their company officers, and Major Johnson put out notification that the practice must cease immediately. Although it could seriously threaten the crew members’ lives, I don’t believe it ever stopped completely.

Captain Bew White, maintenance officer of the 391st Field Artillery, which was normally attached to CCB, told me they were having difficulty with 105mm howitzer shells firing erratically. Although the division was out of the line, the artillery fired support from time to time for the 104th Infantry Division, which was holding the line on the Roer River at Düren.

The firing chamber in the breech end of a 105mm howitzer is bored in several diameters. The initial part is bored to a specific diameter and tapered to allow the cartridge to be easily inserted. This diameter must be large enough to allow the free passage of the cartridge case and yet small enough to allow the cartridge case to expand against it when the round is fired, and to allow obturation (a sealing action that traps combustion gases).

Just forward of the cartridge chamber is the head space, with a smaller diameter than the cartridge chamber and of sufficient bore and length to accommodate the rotating band. Just forward of the head space is the forcing cone, the area where the tapered lands start from the diameter of the rotating band and decrease slightly along a tapered length of approximately two inches until the lands reach a diameter to accommodate the projectile’s bourrelet (the main diameter of the projectile itself). The lands are in effect longitudinal ridges approximately a quarter inch wide, separated by grooves of equal dimension and of sufficient number to cover the entire circumference of the barrel. The groove between the lands is approximately an eighth inch deep, and the diameter from the top of the lands back into the head space is gradually tapered for a length of approximately one and a half inches. These lands and grooves are formed with a spiral broach that is pulled through the barrel.

When the propelling charge fires, the pressure forces the shell forward and the soft top of the rotating band is cut by the tapered forcing cone. This imparts obturation to the front of the shell and at the same time causes the shell to rotate, giving it stability as it leaves the end of the barrel. This forcing cone, the most critical part of the gun barrel, receives the greatest wear.

In addition to the shearing action of cutting the rotating band, the forcing cone is subjected to corrosion from the fulminate of mercury used in the primers, and from the high temperature and pressure inside the barrel. This corrosion causes pitting, which further weakens the lands in the forcing cone to the extent that they shear off for several inches inside the tube itself. When this happens, the grooving in the rotating band becomes erratic. This in turn causes the projectile to lose obturation and wobble when it emerges from the end of the barrel. In some cases, the rotating band is so severely damaged that it comes off in flight and the projectile starts tumbling, which throws it off its trajectory. A tumbling projectile could drop short and kill our own troops.

Upon examination, it was revealed that all the gun barrels in the 391st Field Artillery were in bad shape. In some cases, the lands were sheared off for twelve to eighteen inches. I reported this immediately to Major Arrington. Lieutenants Nibbelink and Lincoln reported similar conditions in the 67th and 54th Armored Field Artillery Battalions. A detailed ordnance inspection revealed that all of these gun tubes were badly worn and should be replaced. Major Arrington called Captain Sembera and requested that he immediately requisition fifty-four 105mm tubes.

Army ordnance couldn’t believe that the gun barrels were worn as badly as we reported. They told Captain Sembera that they were sending forward a first lieutenant who was an ordnance “expert” on gun barrels from Rock Island Arsenal. When Sembera introduced him to us in the liaison group, I recognized him immediately, although I’m not sure he recognized me at the time. After a short while, we developed a good rapport. The lieutenant was Joe Dortman; we had been classmates in 1939 during ROTC summer camp training at Aberdeen Proving Ground. He was an academic type, kind of flaky, extremely naive, and the butt of several practical jokes. By today’s standards, he would be considered a nerd. I told Nibbelink and Lincoln about my experience with Dortman back at Aberdeen; I wanted to make sure they didn’t let the cat out of the bag, because we wanted to make sure we got those replacement gun tubes.

At Aberdeen Proving Ground that summer, we had 150 ordnance cadets from nine different ROTC units. We were split up so we would get to know the men from other schools. My three tent mates were from the University of California at Berkeley, Cornell, and the University of Cincinnati; the tent next to us had my buddy Barnett from Georgia Tech. Dortman, an MIT man, lived several tents down. He always sounded off the right answer before anybody else when the instructor asked questions during lectures. He was also somewhat arrogant, and the rest of us began to resent him.

We were given seating assignments at the eight-man tables in the mess hall, and Dortman was assigned to the same table with Barnett and me. During the day, we were on a tight schedule. In the mornings we would attend lectures together and after lunch we would be assigned to small groups and visit various weapons sections. The day’s activities were good grist for the table conversations that evening.

One evening Barnett asked what I’d done that day.

“Oh,” I answered with a slight grin, “we visited the white rat section down at the south end of the proving ground.”

Barnett winked back. “Oh, what do they do down there?”

“They’ve developed a highly intelligent breed of gopher rats,” I replied, “and they put them through a rigorous training program.”

“What kind of a training program are you talking about?” Dortman demanded.

I notched up the ante. “They use the rats to assist in cleaning out the antitank guns before they fire them.”

“What do you mean they assist in cleaning out the guns?” replied Dortman.

He was beginning to swallow the bait, so I quickly replied. “They take these white rats and breed them specially for size and weight and color, also for the quality of their fur. When the rats are fully developed, they train them in different mazes to see if they’ll follow commands and directions. After they’re thoroughly indoctrinated, they’re dipped in a cleaning solution and put into the chamber of a 37mm gun. A soldier holds up a piece of cheese at the other end of the gun tube. As the rat scrambles after the cheese, he thoroughly swabs the inside of the barrel, cleaning out the dirt and Cosmoline.

“Just before he reaches the end of the barrel, the soldier pulls the cheese away and the rat drops into another cleaning bath, then he’s routed back through the chamber again. Sometimes it takes two or three passes before the gun barrel is clean, provided he doesn’t get the cheese in the meantime. If he grabs the cheese before the soldier can pull it away from the end of the muzzle, he’ll stop and eat the cheese and won’t be interested in cleaning the gun. If he completes his mission properly, he gets the cheese as a reward.”

Dortman looked stunned as he took this in. I was sort of stunned myself to think he actually believed the story. I had never told such a lie in my life.

The other fellows sitting around the table looked about to explode. I figured we’d better do something in a hurry, so I started out again.

“You remember last week when we went down to see them fire the big fourteen-inch gun? Well, Dortman, do you know how they cleaned it out? They used a rare breed of Texas jackrabbit, and instead of cheese they dangled carrots at the other end of the barrel. I understand it took six jackrabbits and about three bushels of carrots before they got that gun clean.”

This last comment was too much. I think Dortman realized he’d been had. For the next few days, he was kind of cold and aloof, and I realized he must have thought I was some kind of nut. Before we left camp, however, things had settled down and we parted as good buddies. This was the last I had seen of Dortman until he showed up for the artillery inspection in Germany.

When we got down to the 391st Field Artillery, I took Dortman to see Bew White, and we went over to one of the batteries and started inspecting the guns. Dortman had brought with him a special inspection mirror, consisting of a telescopic stainless steel tube with an angular adjustable mirror on the end; it looked like an enlarged version of a dentist’s inspection mirror. By stretching the stainless steel handle to its full length, Dortman could inspect the bore of the gun barrel.

The first gun we inspected was heavily pitted around the forcing cone, and the lands were ripped out eighteen inches forward of this area in a jagged fashion. It was obvious that the gun should be replaced.

Dortman couldn’t believe this and asked to see the gun book. Each artillery piece had a gun book that was kept with it at all times; the crew entered the number of rounds and the size of the charge fired each day. After an extremely heavy barrage, the crew could look at the number of rounds left and tell how many had been fired. A good gun crew chief kept these books up-to-date, so he could have a relative comparison of the condition of his gun tube at any time.

The 105mm ammunition was designed as a separate loading round. This meant that the brass cartridge case and the projectile would come apart. Each new round contained seven individual charges. Each charge consisted of a small bag of smokeless powder. By removing the bags, the crew had the option of firing from one to seven charges, depending on the range of the target. By entering this information into the gun book on a daily basis, one could quickly calculate the comparable number of service charges (the equivalent of firing the full seven) that had been fired.

After looking at the gun book, Dortman said, “These guns are supposed to fire seventy-five hundred service rounds, and they haven’t fired nearly that many. What the hell have you been doing with these guns?”

The crew chief spoke up. “Lieutenant, as you know, the seventy-five-hundred-service-round charge rating is based on firing at four rounds per minute. When we’re firing a red-hot mission, we fire at least ten rounds per minute.”

Dortman was incredulous that a gun could be fired this fast, but after witnessing several rapid-fire missions called by the 104th Infantry Division, he became a believer. All of the other gun barrels were in similar or worse condition. Dortman told Captain Sembera that he would recommend that First Army replace all the gun barrels immediately.

As Dortman was leaving, he relaxed and smiled. “Cooper, I never have forgotten how you and Barnett pulled my leg about those white rats.”

I relaxed myself and told him that I’d been uptight during his whole visit, hoping he hadn’t held it against me. As he left in his Jeep on his way back to First Army, I couldn’t help but get in a last-minute remark. “You know, if we ran some of those white rats through these gun tubes, they’d probably come out looking like striped-butt tigers.”

As I was leaving VII Corps headquarters at Eupen, I saw two young boys standing near my Jeep. One of the great tragedies of war is the profound effect it has on children. Because Eupen was a border town and had been transferred back and forth four times in the last thirty years, the children were bound to be confused as to whose side they were on. The two boys looked to be about four and eight years of age, and I figured they were brothers. Many of these children spoke French and German and also understood a little English.

I figured I’d been targeted for a handout. The older one blurted,
“Avez vous du chocolat?”
(Do you have some chocolate?) The younger one blurted something about
schokolade
(the German word for chocolate). The older boy understood that the Americans and the Belgians were on the same side, whereas the younger boy, having been born during the German occupation, had no idea about sides; he was German and proud of it.