140 The Battle For Geilenkirchen, After the Battle, AFTER THE BATTLE
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//-->THE BATTLE FORGEILENKIRCHENNumber 1404 09770306154080£3.95NUMBER 140© CopyrightAfter the Battle2008Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. RamseyManaging Editor: Gordon RamseyEditor: Karel MargryPublished byBattle of Britain International Ltd.,The Mews, Hobbs Cross House,Hobbs Cross, Old Harlow,Essex CM17 0NN, EnglandTelephone: 01279 41 8833Fax: 01279 41 9386E-mail: hq@afterthebattle.comWebsite: www.afterthebattle.comPrinted in Great Britain byWarners Group Publications PLC.,Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PH.After the Battleis published on the 15thof February, May, August and November.LONDON STOCKIST for theAfter the Battlerange:Motorbooks, 13/15 Cecil Court, London WC2N 4ANTelephone: 020 7836 5376. Fax: 020 7497 2539United Kingdom Newsagent Distribution:Warners Group Publications PLC.,Bourne, Lincolnshire PE10 9PHAustralian Subscriptions and Back Issues:Renniks Publications Pty LimitedUnit 3, 37-39 Green Street, Banksmeadow NSW 2019Telephone: 61 2 9695 7055. Fax: 61 2 9695 7355E-mail: info@renniks.com. Web site: www.renniks.comCanadian Distribution and Subscriptions:Vanwell Publishing Ltd., PO Box 2131,1 Northrup Crescent, St. Catharines, Ontario L2R 7S2.Telephone: (905) 937 3100 Fax: (905) 937 1760Toll Free: 1-800-661-6136E-mail: sales@vanwell.comNew Zealand Distribution:Dal McGuirk’s “MILITARY ARCHIVE”, P.O. Box 24486,Royal Oak, Auckland 1030 New Zealand.Telephone: 021 627 870 Fax: 9-6252817E-mail: milrchiv@mist.co.nzUnited States Distribution and Subscriptions:RZM Imports Inc, 880 Canal St., Stamford, CT 06902Telephone: 1-203-324-5100 Fax: 1-203-324-5106E-mail: info@rzm.com Website: www.rzm.comItalian Distribution:Tuttostoria, PO Box 395, 1-43100 Parma.Telephone: ++390521 29 27 33, Fax: ++390521 29 03 87E-mail: info@tuttostoria.it Web site: www.tuttostoria.itDutch Language Edition:SI Publicaties/Quo Vadis, Postbus 188,6860 AD Oosterbeek.Telephone: 026-4462834 E-mail: si@sipublicaties.nlGEILENKIRCHENCONTENTSTHE BATTLE FOR GEILENKIRCHENVETERANS RETURN1945 Battlefield TourUNITED KINGDOMThe Dickin Medal and the PDSAAnimal Cemetery234Situated close to the border and north of Aachen, Geilenkirchen was a lynchpin positionof the German Siegfried Line and its seizure would eliminate a German salient protrudinginto Allied lines and remove a threat to the American offensive towards the Roer river.46Front Cover:The remains of a Siegfried Linebunker, preserved just south of the village ofBeeck, three miles north-east of Geilenkirchen, inwest Germany. The scene of heavy fighting inNovember 1944, most of the bunkers in theGeilenkirchen area were demolished and clearedaway after the war, but this fragment was leftstanding as a memorial to the German and Ameri-can soldiers who fell in combat around Beeck – seepage 32. (Karel Margry)Centre Pages:American combat engineers blow-ing up a Siegfried Line bunker near Geilenkirchenin November 1944. Most Westwall bunkers weredynamited by the Allies immediately after captureso as make them militarily useless.(IWM)Inset top:A British soldier talking to two American soldiersin shell-torn Geilenkirchen on November 21, twodays after the town was captured. (IWM)Bottom:The same corner of Hünshovener Markt in rebuiltGeilenkirchen today. (Karel Margry)Back Cover:Author Gail Parker with Oliver and Rosieat the grave of Rip, awarded the Dickin Medal forservice during the Blitz on London — see page 50.Acknowledgements:ForhelpwiththeGeilenkirchen story, the Editor would like to thankMartijn Bakker, Lieutenant-Colonel Nick Lock,Johan van Doorn and Hans Houterman. Heextends his appreciation to David Paradise for hishelp with the story on the 1945 Battlefield Tour.Photo Credits:IWM – Imperial War Museum, Lon-don; USNA – US National Archives.The Geilenkirchen offensive was badly hampered by the atrocious weather conditionsthat characterised the late autumn of 1944. Normal average for this region of Germanywas 15 days of rain in November but in November 1944 it rained on 28 days. The exces-sive rainfall and almost constant cloudiness grounded air forces, reduced aerial observa-tion, turned fields into bogs, foxholes into wells, clogged weapons with mud and boundvehicles to roads. This scene of a tank soldier of the Sherwood Rangers picking his waythrough the mud to get water for tea, pictured east of Geilenkirchen by Captain BillMalindine on November 24, is symbolic of the conditions that the troops had to fight in.2IWM B12044On November 18, 1944, the Allies launched an assault to cap-ture the German town of Geilenkirchen. Located as it was righton the boundary between the British and American armies inEurope, Geilenkirchen was reduced in a joint Anglo-Americanoperation — code-named ‘Clipper ‘ — involving both the British43rd (Wessex) Division and the US 84th Infantry Division,with British armour providing support to both formations.For the British Army it was their first major battle on Germansoil. Taken to symbolise the co-operation of the two armies,this picture shows British tank crews and American doughboysjoining in a sing-song in front of a British flail tank outsideGeilenkirchen. The tankers belong to B Squadron of the Lothi-ans and Border Yeomanry, a unit of the 79th Armoured Division,and the GIs to the 334th Infantry of the 84th Infantry Division.THE BATTLE FOR GEILENKIRCHENGeilenkirchen is a small German townlocated 14 miles north of Aachen and closeto the German-Dutch border. Situated in thevalley of the sluggish Wurm river, in the mid-dle of a dreary, drab coal-mining district, it isa minor traffic centre controlling main roadsin four directions, to Heinsberg in the north,Düren in the east, Aachen in the south andacross the border to Sittard and Heerlen inthe west. An industrial town of no particularfurther interest, with a pre-war population of9,000, it gained major tactical importance inthe autumn of 1944 because it was a corner-stone stronghold in one of the strongest sec-tions of the Siegfried Line (or Westwall asthe Germans called it), the much-dauntedbelt of fortifications protecting Germany’swestern border.North of Aachen, the Siegfried Line fol-lowed the course of the Wurm river, whichflows through Geilenkirchen and then north-wards another seven miles to join the Roernear Heinsberg. On either side of the Wurmthe ground rises to high-ground plateaus,slightly higher on the east bank than on thewest. Along this high ground, on both sidesof the river but more strongly on the easternside, lay the fixed defences of the SiegfriedLine. West of the Wurm these consistedmainly of minefields and barbed wire. Eastof the river, following the hills that ran paral-lel to it, was the main belt of pillboxes,bunkers and casemates, mounting innumer-able machine guns and anti-tank guns. Theriver itself had been cleverly exploited as ananti-tank barrier, augmented here and therewith dragon-teeth obstacles.By the beginning of November 1944,American troops had been in the area over-looking Geilenkirchen for some time. The30th Division of the US XIX Corps of the USFirst Army had already penetrated theSiegfried Line at a point three miles south ofGeilenkirchen in early October and, fanningout from Übach-Palenberg, had brought thefront line to within a mile of the town. Therethe front had stabilised and remained staticfor six weeks. Geilenkirchen now formed thetip of a German salient, a wedge in theAllied line.On October 22, the newly operational USNinth Army, commanded by LieutenantGeneral William H. Simpson, arrived in thearea. Tasked with holding the left flank ofGeneral Omar N. Bradley’s US 12th ArmyGroup, the army took control of the sectionof the line from just north of Aachen to theboundary with Field Marshal Bernard Mont-gomery’s British 21st Army Group at Maas-eik in the Netherlands. This section includedGeilenkirchen.In early November, the Supreme AlliedCommander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower,concentrated the US First and Ninth Armieson a narrow front and directed them to attackin the general direction of Cologne. As a firststep, the two armies would launch an offensive— code-named Operation ‘Queen’ — to gainbridgeheads over the Roer river at Düren,Jülich and Linnich. With the Americans nar-rowing their front, British Second Army wasshifted south to take over part of the NinthArmy front. British XXX Corps, commandedby Lieutenant-General Sir Brian HorrocksBy Karel Margryand comprising the 43rd (Wessex) Division,the Guards Armoured Division and the 8thArmoured Brigade, was moved south fromNijmegen in the Netherlands and on Novem-ber 10 assumed control of the 17-mile sectorbetween Maaseik and Geilenkirchen, immedi-ately to the north of the US Ninth Army.Assigned to hold the southern half of the corpssector, the 43rd Division relieved the 407thInfantry Regiment of the US 102nd Divisionand occupied the line from the village ofBirgden in the north to Geilenkirchen in thesouth. Thus Geilenkirchen came to lie on theboundary between the British and Americanforces.Geilenkirchen itself was assigned to theAmerican sector. Planning his ‘Queen’ offen-sive, General Simpson of the Ninth Armyrealised that he could not strike eastward tothe Roer and leave Geilenkirchen untaken.It would stand as a threat to his left flank andrear and, moreover, it controlled badly-needed main roads to Heinsberg and Linnichon the Roer. The town had to be taken. Yetif he included the town in his operation, themomentum of his drive would almost cer-tainly become slowed down by the costlyhouse-to-house fighting that it would entail.Capturing the town would require at leastone division, probably two, and Simpson hadonly one division available, the untried 84thInfantry Division. Simpson decided to askthe neighbouring British XXX Corps to dothe job.3HOVENDORSETWOODTRIPSRATHWÜRMRISCHDENGILLRATHNIEDERHEIDEHOCHHEIDMÜLLENDORFBEECKSÜGGERATHBAUCHEMFRONT LINE NOVEMBER 18GEILENKIRCHENPRÜMMERNXBr. 43rdXUS 84thThe Geilenkirchen battlefield. We have marked the places that featured largely in Operation ‘Clipper’.On November 10, Simpson visited GeneralHorrocks at his headquarters at Beek in Hol-land and put the proposal to him. Horrocksinitially declined, explaining that, as much ashe would like to help, he too had only onedivision, the 43rd, at his disposal. Neither21st Army Group nor Second Army wereprepared to give him any additional troops.A few days later, Simpson invited Hor-rocks to his headquarters in Maastricht foran evening with him and Eisenhower. Afterdinner, Eisenhower jokingly asked: ‘WellJorrocks [his nickname], are you going totake on Geilenkirchen for us?’ Horrocksagain explained that he had just one divisionfor what was clearly a two-division task.Eisenhower turned to Simpson and said:‘Give him one of ours’. Simpson offered himthe 84th Division. The American generalsbrushed aside Horrocks’ objections that itwas unfair to give such a difficult task to anuntried division, and so Geilenkirchenbecame a XXX Corps responsibility.Horrocks decided to encircle Geilen-kirchen by an attack from the south-east bythe 84th Division and an attack from thenorth-west by the 43rd Division. Code-named Operation ‘Clipper’, the attack wasoriginally to start on November 16, one dayafter the start of Operation ‘Queen’, but itwas postponed one day, to the 18th, in thehope that ‘Queen’ might draw away Germantroops from the town. The plan of attack wasdivided into four phases.Firstly, at 0700 on November 18, one regi-ment of the 84th Division, the 334th Infantry,would jump off on the right flank of thesalient to capture the high ground east andnorth-east of Geilenkirchen around the vil-lage of Prümmern.4Secondly, at 1230 the same day, the 43rdDivision would attack on the left flank of thesalient, launching its 214th Brigade to winthe high ground between the villages ofTripsrath and Bauchem, north and west ofGeilenkirchen.Thirdly, with Geilenkirchen thus virtuallyencircled, at 0700 the next day, a second regi-ment of the 84th Division, the 333rdInfantry, would take Geilenkirchen itself in afrontal attack and continue a mile and a halfnorthward up the Wurm valley to the villageof Süggerath.Finally, in a fourth phase, the 43rd Divi-sion was to continue to clear the west bank ofthe Wurm as far as Waldenrath, Straeten andHoven, three villages located about threemiles to the north of Geilenkirchen, whilethe 84th Division pushed beyond Süggerathand Prümmern to another trio of villages –Müllendorf, Würm and Beeck — aboutequally distant from Geilenkirchen.Taking all these objectives would elimi-nate the German salient between the BritishSecond Army and the American Ninth Army(and between the British 21st Army Groupand US 12th Army Group) and produce aneat front line that would describe a broadarc from the Maas river near Maasbracht tothe Wurm river about Hoven and thencenorth-eastward along the Aachen-Mönchen-gladbach railway. This would provide theNinth Army with a good springboard for thefinal push across the remaining two and ahalf miles to the Roer river at Linnich.Pushing northwards along both sides ofthe Wurm valley, Operation ‘Clipper’ wouldnot be a frontal attack on the Siegfried Linebut be directed along the long axis of the for-tified belt. This presented a formidable taskfor it meant the 84th Division would have tofight its way though an almost endless con-tinuation of bunkers and pillboxes. It alsomeant the 43rd Division, on the other side ofthe Wurm, would advance over lower groundin full view of the large-calibre Siegfried Lineguns.Apart from the fact that one was Britishand the other American, the two divisionsearmarked for the Geilenkirchen operationwere decidedly different in background andexperience.The 43rd (Wessex) Division was a vet-eran formation, seasoned by five months ofalmost continuous combat. Commanded byMajor-General Ivor Thomas, it had landedin Normandy at the end of June and foughtin the battles of the Odon river, Hill 112 andMont Pinçon; made the assault crossingover the Seine river at Vernon in August(seeAfter the BattleNos. 18 and 119) andparticipated in the Arnhem battle in Sep-tember.The US 84th Infantry Division, on theother hand, was totally green and untried inbattle. Commanded by Brigadier GeneralAlexander R. Bolling, it had only landed inFrance on November 1. Assigned to the XIIICorps of the US Ninth Army, it had arrivedin the Geilenkirchen area on the 10th. Oneof its three infantry regiments, the 335th, hadbeen attached to the 30th Division the fol-lowing day and would not be available forthe Geilenkirchen attack. To make up for it,General Bolling was given a regiment of theequally inexperienced 102nd Division, the405th Infantry. This regiment had been hold-ing the line south of Geilenkirchen sinceOctober 26 and the 84th Division wouldjump off through it.To bolster up the green American troops,Horrocks gave the 84th Division a seasonedBritish tank battalion in support — the Not-tinghamshire Yeomanry (The SherwoodRangers) of the 8th Armoured Brigade. (Thebrigade’s other two battalions — the 4th/7thDragoon Guards and the 13th/18th Hussars— would support the 43rd Division’s attack.)In addition, to help the Americans makethe initial breakthrough and support them inassaulting the Siegfried Line fortifications,the 84th was assigned a force of specialisedarmour from the British 79th ArmouredDivision. Operating under command ofColonel Henry Drew and known as Drew-force this included Crab mine-flailing tanksfrom B Squadron of the Lothians and BorderYeomanry, Crocodile flame-throwing tanksfrom A squadron of the 141st RoyalArmoured Corps, and AVRE (Assault Vehi-cle Royal Engineers) tanks from the 617thAssault Squadron, RE.Lastly, the Americans were given a troopof the 357th Searchlight Battery, RA. Theirfour giant beacons, reflecting their beams offlow clouds, would provide artificial moon-light in the pre-dawn hours of D-Day.The British special armour units arrived inthe Geilenkirchen assault area on November14. Their commanders lectured all Americanregiments taking part in the operation on thebattle-proven methods of working of themine-clearing and flame-throwing tanks, dis-cussing the forthcoming battle on cloth mod-els. Finally, the practice was rehearsed withthe actual troops taking part.Meanwhile, 43rd Division was planningand preparing its part in the operation. With129th Brigade holding the line, the twoassault brigades, the 214th and 130th, con-centrated around the Dutch mining town ofBrunssum, five miles to the rear. To enablethese troops to reach the start line on D-Day,Royal Engineers improved tracks and cutlanes through the intervening woods andacross the wasteland, giving them such famil-iar names as ‘Bond Street’, ‘Dover Street’,‘Saville Row’ and ‘Piccadilly’. The trafficplan for the battle was worked out in greatdetail. The sappers also lifted some 1,400mines, laid by the Americans in the preced-ing weeks, but which would block the 214thBrigade during its break-out. (An accidentalexplosion of 700 of these mines on Novem-ber 14 killed 14 men and fatally woundedBrigadier Gerard Mole of the 129thBrigade.) A massive amount of artilleryammunition was assembled for the plannedartillery programme. Meanwhile, patrolsscouted out the enemy positions, and officersstudied aerial photographs and defence over-print maps. All troops were thoroughlybriefed. In small groups, using cloth models,the battalions were told how they fitted intothe general plan, and their missions wereexplained in detail.Attacking two days behind the main offen-sive, XXX Corps benefited little from themassive air bombardment that preceded‘Queen’ on November 16, although Linnichand Heinsberg were scheduled to be hit.Instead, the corps received air support fromfighter-bombers provided both by the BritishSecond Tactical Air Force and the US XXIXTactical Air Command. Softening-up of theGerman defences began as early as Novem-ber 8 with a napalm strike on Geilenkirchen.Defence of the Geilenkirchen salient wasthe responsibility of the XII. SS-Armeekorpsunder General der Infanterie Günther Blu-mentritt, part of the German 15. Armee. Inthe line from north to south, Blumentritt hadthree divisions: the 176. Infanterie-Divisionnorth-west of Geilenkirchen; the 183. Volks-grenadier-Division, holding Geilenkirchenand the sectors on either side, and the 49.Infanterie-Division further to the south.The 183. Volksgrenadier-Division, com-manded by Generalleutnant WolfgangLange, would suffer the initial onslaught ofIn preparation for the upcoming operation, the 43rd Division’s Royal Engineers con-structed main tracks through the heath and woodlands between the division’sconcentration areas at Brunssum in the Netherlands and the operation’s start line atGillrath in Germany. Named after well-known London streets, they facilitated aspeedy move forward on the first day but later, with rainy weather persisting, turnedinto muddy tracks. Here a Military Policeman directs a 4th/7th Dragoon Guards truckat the junction of ‘Bond Street’ and ‘Dover Street’.Operation ‘Clipper’. Composed largely ofAustrian troops, at full strength and com-pletely equipped, it had arrived in the Westto man the Westwall pillboxes north ofAachen on September 17. Appearing just intime to oppose the first American probes ofthe bunker line, it had been involved inheavy fighting and suffered losses, but thesehad been partly made good by the attach-ment of the personnel of two officer trainingschools, the Unteroffiziersschulen Jülich andDüren, which each made up a battalion-sizecombat group. Pulled out of the line for restand reorganisation, in early November it wascommitted to hold the Geilenkirchen sector.By mid-November, the division’s forceswere divided as follows: Grenadier-Regiment351, with only one of its organic battalions(I. Bataillon) left but incorporating the twoofficer training units, held the sector justnorth of Geilenkirchen; Grenadier-Regiment343 manned the central sector, its I. Bataillonholding Geilenkirchen itself and II. BataillonPrümmern; and Grenadier-Regiment 330occupied the southern part of the divisionalsector around Immendorf. The divisionalArtillerie-Regiment 219 had four batteries atfull strength and, to complement its power,General Blumentritt had emplaced the bulkof his corps artillery about Geilenkirchen.Late on the 17th, reports of German tankconcentrations near Geilenkirchen broughtthe worry to the Allies that a prompt Ger-man counter-attack on the 84th Division was‘very probable’ but General Bolling decidednot to change any of his plans, hoping hemight just beat the Germans to the punch.Major-General Ivor Thomas, commander of the 43rd Division, motoring up in his Hum-ber light reconnaissance car to observe the start of the Geilenkirchen attack on themorning of November 18. In the rear seat, his ADC, Lieutenant Pat Spencer Moore.5IWM BU1428IWM B12092
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