From Brittany to the Reich by Joseph Balkoski

Author:Joseph Balkoski [Balkoski, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Military, History, World War II, United States
ISBN: 9780811748711
Publisher: Stackpole Books
Published: 2012-05-14T14:00:00+00:00

The 116th Infantry at Aachen, October 1–23, 1944.

The column pressed on, past several massive slag heaps and abandoned coal mines that were common to this industrial region of Germany. As an expressive clerk in Company K logged on his daily morning report, “We are now fighting in the country that for thirty years has given the world a hot foot.” At key road junctions, gesticulating military policemen guided the tanks along the proper path, but for the moment, darkness prevented Collier’s command from coming into direct grips with the Germans. The next morning, October 6, the advance resumed, and the vehicles plunged eastward along a typical Rhineland country road, bordered on both sides by seemingly endless lines of decorative trees. In peacetime, the bucolic surroundings would have been striking, but now, as Baltimore Sun reporter Bradley observed, the environment was anything but serene: “Along the road, trees were either broken off just above the ground or had most of their limbs torn off…. In the field off to the left were two German self-propelled 75s and a Mark IV tank [casualties of an October 4 German counterattack against the 30th Division], all burned out.” The Americans would inevitably bump into formidable enemy resistance momentarily, so Collier had to deploy his command from its unwieldy road column into formations better suited for battle. In due course, as his two task forces reached their designated jump-off points, they diverged from the main road and struck out toward their immediate objectives, the farming villages of Oidtweiler and Baesweiler. The fighting over the next few days would determine whether the enemy line centered on those two hamlets would collapse, leaving Collier’s mobile force free to exploit through the breach. If the Germans held, the combat would surely descend into yet another indecisive and costly battle of attrition.

The 3rd Battalion’s Company L, led by Capt. Maurice McGrath, joined the northern column, composed mainly of the 2nd Battalion, 66th Armor, and headed for Baesweiler. Company I, commanded by 1st Lt. James Myers, moved with the 1st Battalion, 66th Armor, in the southern force, and pressed forward toward Oidtweiler. Company M, a heavy-weapons outfit, attached four water-cooled Browning machine guns and their crews to each column. For the moment, Puntenney held 1st Lt. Elmer Reagor’s Company K in reserve. Puntenney’s battalion, which had last been in combat on September 18 in the streets of Brest, was about to meet the foe again.

The German defenders had neither the skill nor the weaponry of the paratroopers whom the 116th had battled at Brest, but they were obviously not ready to admit defeat as some GIs had hoped. A 3rd Battalion action report summarized the Germans’ attitude by describing their fire, both small-arms and artillery, as “withering.” The weather on October 6 was uncommonly bright, with little overcast, thereby allowing Ninth Air Force fighter-bombers to batter German strongpoints repeatedly from the air. Even so, neither McGrath’s nor Myers’ column came close to reaching its objective, and both would have to wait for daylight on October 7 to try again.

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