Chapter 9
17th Airborne Division strikes back
General Miley’s opportunity to hit back at the Germans finally came on the morning of 26 March. Sherman tanks of 771st Tank Battalion and self-propelled anti-tank guns from 144th Battery had crossed the Issel Canal, joining the paratroopers during the night. As artillery batteries rolled onto the east bank of the Rhine and opened communications with the men at the front line, Miley’s men knew that they could call on a devastating array of firepower.
A rolling artillery barrage started at 09:00 hours along the entire divisional front and all three Regiments advanced hugging the line of shell bursts, while the tanks and self-propelled guns followed at a close distance. Resistance was minimal. Although sporadic firefights broke out from time to time, the Germans were trying to withdraw; the counter-attacks over the past two nights had taken their toll on General Strabe’s men.
507th Regiment overran strongpoints along the north bank of the Lippe river, taking dozens of prisoners, and 2nd Battalion had reached the Autobahn within an hour. 1st Battalion arrived two hours later after engaging a lone Stug III operating near Krudenburg; the Panzergrenadiers withdrew as soon as the paratroopers had knocked out the self-propelled gun. As the Regiment dug in along the Autobahn, Colonel Raff made himself comfortable in his new headquarters, the underground complex that had been the nerve centre for air defences stretching from Holland through to the heart of Germany. By nightfall patrols had managed to get across the Lippe river at Hunxe making contact with 30th Division and for the first time Ninth Army held a continuous line either side of the river.
German resistance along the rest of the divisional front was ineffectual. 194th Glider Regiment took 330 prisoners, wiping out 1221st Regiment from 180th Infantry Division, while 513th Regiment advanced steadily alongside 6th British Airborne Division, capturing over 500 prisoners and the town of Brunen, over two miles east of the Issel Stream. It appeared that German morale was teetering on the edge. While 30th Division fought for every inch in Staatsforst Wesel, 17th Airborne Division appeared to have found a weak point in First Parachute Army’s line. With 8th Armoured Division bottled up behind the centre of XVI Corps front, General Simpson wondered if it would be possible to break through north of the Lippe and, after discussions with General Dempsey, arranged for a British Armoured Brigade to move into the paratroopers perimeter. The time to unleash Operation PLUNDER was drawing near.
30th Division
During the night Major General Hobbs warned his regimental commanders to be on the guard against counter-attacks by armoured battle groups. Although 116th Panzer Division was a mere shadow of its paper strength, the American tanks working alongside 30th Division were no match for the heavier German panzers. The Old Hickories faced a tough fight, one they could not afford to lose.
On 30th Division’s southern flank 120th Regiment faced Schwarze Heide, a clearing in the forest codenamed Objective Hilda. The plan was for 2nd Battalion to conduct a pincer movement, sending two Companies along the north edge of the clearing while the third advanced south of the Kirchhellen road.
As Lieutenant Colonel Cantey’s men prepared for an attack at dawn, patrols headed out into the darkness to check the line of departure for enemy activity. They found plenty. One of Company E’s patrols made the first contact, finding a 105mm self-propelled gun waiting on the line of departure; the patrol quietly retired to report the worrying development. On Company F’s front a patrol withdrew after hearing tanks moving across Schwarze Heide; a second patrol became embroiled in a firefight with German outposts and did not return until the early hours. It appeared that 116th Panzer Division was preparing to make its own attack.
After hearing the reports, Colonel Purdue decided to bring 2nd Battalion’s advance forward by an hour, looking to infiltrate the German lines before it was light, and Cantey passed on the new orders emphasising the need to move quickly to his subordinates:
Fox [Company F] is going to the south; their job is to slip through, not to attack any tanks they meet. If they don’t get through by bypassing, they won’t get through at all.
2nd Battalion’s advance went to plan and while two companies pushed ahead on the flanks, a platoon remained behind to clear the German outposts along the edge of Schwarze Heide. The early start had given Cantey’s men the advantage but after advancing a mile the Germans struck as Company F was closing in on the far side of the clearing. Five tanks and a company of Panzergrenadiers roared out of the woods along the Kirchhellen road, catching Captain Jacobsen’s men in the open. The first shell killed 1st Platoon’s leader and sent his men scrambling for cover. Sergeant Javitch tried to rally them behind a farmhouse in the middle of the clearing as 3rd Platoon gave covering fire and Private Raymond Rottar ran ahead to the house clutching a handful of rifle grenades. The private’s brave attempt to stop the tank ended as he crouched to take aim; a shell slammed into the building above his head, killing him instantly.
Chaffee tanks move forward to support the infantry; the tank crews relied on the GIs to sweep the roads and ditches for mines. 111-SC-206437
German infantry attack with Panzer Mk IVs in support.
As shells rained down and the tanks advanced towards 2nd Battalion, Lieutenant Colonel Cantey’s men were calling for their own armoured support but the Shermans were still held up some distance away by mines. 2nd Battalion would have to rely on close support from the artillery to stop the Panzergrenadiers crossing Schwarze Heide. Sergeant King’s platoon was frantically trying to clear a route to the waiting Shermans when a German tank spotted them. Time and time again the tank fired but 2nd Platoon continued its work, dragging its wounded as it probed for mines; two men had been killed and another thirteen wounded by the time King cleared the road. 2nd Platoon’s sacrifice allowed the Shermans to move forward to support the rest of the battalion.
The arrival of tanks behind 2nd Battalion’s front forced the Germans to withdraw and as they resorted to shelling Schwarze Heide, Colonel Purdue had to admit that no one could cross the clearing during daylight hours; Cantey would have to wait until nightfall before he tried to advance again.
As the German main attack fell on 2nd Battalion, 1st Battalion had not gone unnoticed as it waited in reserve near Hovelsberg. A company of Panzergrenadiers had slipped through the American lines and caught Company A in the open; Lieutenant Walter Johnson later described the confusion when the Germans attacked:
The men were stretched out on both sides of the road taking a break while I with a few other men checked some houses about 200 yards to the south of the road. It was about 10:00 hours in the morning. Suddenly all hell broke loose. Direct fire, artillery and mortars, hit us all at once, quickly killing one man and wounding eight others. Everyone was so stunned and scared that they could only think of hitting the ground and hoping they would get through somehow. With all this stuff coming in and everyone hugging the ground, Sergeant Alfred Bollengier, kept his wits about him, came up the road and got the men to fall back and bring the wounded men with them to a point farther to the rear about 400 yards where they could get enough cover to avoid further casualties.
Company A eventually repelled the German attack and Captain D’Amico reorganised his men in a defensive position below the summit of Hovelsberg in case the Germans returned.
One man has been hit while the rest of his platoon hugs the ground for cover during a German counter-attack. 111-SC-203437
While the rest of 120th Regiment battled with the Panzergrenadiers, 3rd Battalion had found a weak point in the German lines south of Schwarze Heide and advanced beyond Schlagers Heide. As Major McCullough pushed east towards Kirchhellen it soon became clear why the Germans had abandoned the area, the woods were littered with stacks of ammunition wired for detonation; 3rd Battalion was walking through a deathtrap. In spite of the dangers, Company I pushed on and while Lieutenant John Doyle’s platoon spread out to try to disarm as many of the explosives as possible, McCullough’s men froze every time a shell landed.
There were tense moments as 3rd Battalion closed in on its objective, when infantry were seen moving through the woods from the south. Although it appeared that the Germans were about to attack, the enemy turned out to be GIs from 35th Division; Major General Paul Baade’s Division had moved into line earlier that morning on 30th Division’s right flank. After tying in their positions with the newcomers, 3rd Battalion continued to move east and by mid afternoon Colonel Purdue was relieved to hear that McCullough could see the edge of the woods; after three long days the end of Staatsforst Wesel was in sight.
With his southern flank secure, Colonel Purdue’s concern lay with his centre where the counter attack on 2nd Battalion’s position had pushed Lieutenant Colonel Cantey’s men to their limit; 1st Battalion would have to be committed if he was to clear Schwarze Heide that night. Company A was already heavily engaged at Hovelsberg hill, but the rest of the Battalion was available and at 13:40 hours Lieutenant Colonel Williamson received the order to move. Unfortunately, 2nd Battalion’s support vehicles blocked the only way forward and the woods had been sown with wooden box mines that were impossible to detect. To drive off the single marked path invited disaster and it would take hours to probe the area by hand. The hours ticked by as Williamson’s men crawled forward, prodding the ground with their bayonets, and by the time they had moved through 2nd Battalion’s area the German bombardment had intensified to such an extent that Purdue called off the attack; he would have to wait until nightfall.
Despite the postponement, the capture of Objective June, Besten airfield at the far end of Schwarze Heide, was going to be a difficult mission. 1st Battalion had to cross over a mile of open ground flanked by woods on either side while Panzergrenadiers and tanks waited to meet them at the far end. Aerial reconnaissance had also shown that a ring of concrete encasements armed with heavy calibre anti-aircraft guns protected the airfield. The attack needed to be carefully planned if Butch’s Night Raiders were going to succeed; the after-action report details how Williamson intended to crack Objective June.
1st Battalion attack involved: fire plan to smoke the flanks with 81mm mortars, at the same time smoking the objective and firing successive concentrations by the artillery. (Some civilians later said the enemy was convinced there would be no attack with smoke at night.) It also involved an armour plan to use a platoon of tank destroyers along each flank protecting the infantry in the centre, with a section of tanks leading and a company following. It was, then, an extended armour box, moving within an extended smoke box. The infantry used two companies to lead.
There had been concerns that the woods were affecting the reception of the SCR 300 radios and while Lieutenant Ernest Sharpe delivered short wave walkie-talkies to the Company Commanders, Sergeant Baler ran along the line giving out verbal orders to the platoon leaders. Nothing could be left to chance.
After coming under fire, these men warily crawl forward to try to identify the enemy position.
Throughout the afternoon German patrols had been probing 2nd Battalion’s lines, reporting Cantey’s positions to their artillery and by the time 1st Battalion was ready to move it was estimated that fifteen shells were hitting the assembly area every minute. Williamson knew that the artillery would target the line of departure as soon as the attack began and planned his attack accordingly to avoid unnecessary casualties; his reserve company would wait at a safe distance until it was time to move forward.
120th Regiment’s battle for Schwarze Heide and Besten airfield.
As 1st Battalion assembled, artillery and howitzers fired smoke rounds across the objective and along the edges of Schwarze Heide, creating an impenetrable wall of smoke around the clearing, blinding any Germans waiting on the airfield at the far end. At zero hour a section of Sherman tanks roared across the open space while the two assault companies ran alongside. Tank destroyers followed, moving down the edges of the clearing with their guns aimed towards the woods while machine guns and mortars fired indiscriminately into the trees:
The tank destroyers were as ever effective; moving up close behind the attackers, they afforded a quick defence backing.
The attack took the Germans completely by surprise and the line of tanks and infantry came to a halt at the halfway point to allow the reserve company to catch up. As expected the German artillery had targeted the line of departure as soon as 1st Battalion advanced, missing Company A’s assembly area some distance to the rear. Captain D’Amico gave the order to run forward as soon as the shelling slackened off and once they had caught up, the whole the Battalion advanced towards Besten airfield. The enemy reaction was subdued and as prisoners later explained, the smoke had lulled the Germans into a false sense of security; no one had ever attacked through smoke at night before. 1st Battalion pushed on relentlessly, overrunning the anti-aircraft positions surrounding the airfield and within the hour they had scattered the Panzergrenadiers, securing Objective June. The attack had been a complete success.
Trees and thick undergrowth confined vehicles to the forest tracks, leaving the infantry to secure large parts of the forest.
A large amount of ordnance was found abandoned in the woods around Besten airfield including this huge howitzer.
As Williamson’s men dug in for the night, patrols uncovered an impressive array of weaponry and ammunition scattered around the airfield. Four huge 128mm anti-aircraft guns mounted in concrete emplacements were found on the perimeter and eight abandoned Sdkfz 250/17s, halftracks armed with 20mm flak guns were taken. The Battalion also found two rail wagons full of ammunition, two 75mm guns with halftracks, and stacks of abandoned equipment. As the three Companies formed a defensive perimeter around the edge of the airfield, Colonel Purdue was forced to send Lieutenant Colonel Williamson to the rear to receive medical attention for an injury to his hand. Williamson had been wounded at the start of the attack but had refused medical attention until he was sure his men had taken their objective. As Williamson left for the aid station he was proud of the fact that Butch’s Night Raiders had broken through the enemy lines in a cloud of smoke.
120th Regiment’s capture of Besten airfield secured 117th Regiment’s southern flank and Colonel Johnson was anxious to renew his advance towards Objective Marie, in the hope of taking the hilltop anti-aircraft position before dawn.
3rd Battalion moved out at midnight and had soon overrun one flak position on the northern edge of Marie, however, 2nd Battalion had run into problems. German engineers had destroyed a bridge on the forest road heading towards the objective and the leading company lost its way looking for a way around. After two hours it appeared the problem had been solved when a company commander reported that he had reached the objective but he was quickly overruled by 743rd Tank Battalion’s commanding officer; the company had taken a wrong turning and was nowhere near Objective Marie. 2nd Battalion was lost.
As patrols tried to locate the correct track, Colonel Johnson devised a plan to help his men. A gun crew from 118th Field Artillery Battalion fired white phosphorous shells onto Objective Marie at regular intervals and the explosions guided the lost battalion into position. By dawn 117th Regiment was firmly dug in along the edge of Staatsforst Wesel.
While the rest of the division battled their way through the southern half of Staatsforst Wesel, 119th Regiment was trying to advance along the Lippe Canal towards Gahlen. 1st Battalion had started to advance at 08:00 hours but once again the lack of roads and thick mud hampered the advance. Log roadblocks delayed the tanks following Company A along the only road and the Shermans with Company B were soon bogged down as they cut across country. One of 180th Division’s rearguards protected the bridge and as 1st Battalion struggled forward, patrols could see vehicles crossing the canal and moving into Gahlen. 156th Panzer Grenadier Regiment had beaten 119th Regiment to the bridge. Frustrated by their lack of progress, Lieutenant Colonel Heslong’s patrols had to stand by and watch as two Panthers moved into the village followed by trucks and motorbikes carrying Panzergrenadiers.
119th Regiment’s battle for Gahlen.
Gahlen had been codenamed Hubert after Sergeant Dick Wingate’s popular cartoon character in Stars and Stripes, the front line newspaper. In a recent edition Hubert had been pictured eating K-Rations in a shell crater as a German sniper took shots at his group of cartoon comrades: the caption read ‘Let’s ignore the bastard, maybe he’ll go away.’ During a visit by Colonel Jesse Gibney, General Hobbs’ Chief of Staff, Colonel Baker wryly commented that this Hubert could not be ignored; the Panzergrenadiers intended to stay and worry 30th Division’s flank for as long as possible.
The light American Chaffee tanks were no match for the larger German tanks with their thick armour and heavy guns.
While the engineers removed the roadblocks, 1st Battalion had to watch as the rest of 156th Panzergrenadier Regiment crossed over the canal and over the hours that followed five tanks, five self-propelled guns and trucks moved into Gahlen, bringing the number of men defending the town to around 350. Objective Hubert was going to be a tough nut to crack.
As the final roadblock was dragged to one side, Company A began to move across the fields towards Gahlen as the tanks rolled down the road. The advance was short lived. Machine-gun fire brought the infantry to a halt and a hidden German tank disabled one of the M24 Chaffees, blocking the only route forward. With his men pinned down and the rest of the tanks stuck behind the blazing tank; in Heslong’s words, Company A was in a ‘pretty hot spot’. As the Germans focussed their attentions on Company A, Company B worked its way across the fields, infiltrating the outskirts of Gahlen by nightfall.
While 1st Battalion battled for Gahlen, Colonel Baker received orders to push east towards Dorsten (codename Objective Scott) at the first opportunity to block the next bridge along the division’s flank. 3rd Battalion made the advance that night but as the tank destroyers were unable to follow, the attack on the town quickly ran into trouble. Company L was met by a tank and heavily armed Panzergrenadiers and as Lieutenant Colonel Stewart’s men fell back, two platoons were cut off in the outskirts of the town; Stewart’s men faced a long night in the flaming ruins of Objective Scott.
79th Division
As 30th Division advanced through Staatsforst Wesel, General Anderson was anxious to protect XVI Corps’ southern flank and with the help of Task Force M from 35th Division, Wyche was expected to elongate his flank at the same rate. For the second day running, 313th Regiment was to hold its line along the Neue-Ernscher Canal while patrolling towards the Rhine-Herne Canal. Colonel Bibber was pleased to hear that the Hamburg Division had abandoned the area. 79th Division’s chemical mortars had saturated the area with over 10,000 white phosphorous shells on 24 March as they maintained the smokescreen across the river and the bombardment had forced the Germans to evacuate the area; they had never returned.
What the Americans lacked in armour, they more than made up for with their artillery and time after time they dispersed German attacks before they reached 30th Division’s lines. These 25-pdr howitzers are deployed along the incomplete Autobahn cutting.
As 315th Regiment withdrew into reserve ready to join the advance to the Rhine-Herne Canal, 1st Battalion led 314th Regiment towards Zurforst Wesel, a large wooded area. After clearing 2nd Parachute Division’s outposts along the Autobahn, Company A infiltrated the woods but Company B found its way forward blocked by two tanks and a line of infantry emplacements. While 2nd Battalion engaged strongpoints along the southern edge of the forest, 3rd Battalion followed Company A into Zurforst Wesel and by nightfall the woods had been cleared. After a frustrating day Colonel Robinson was pleased to report that an important objective had been taken.
While 314th Regiment dug in along the eastern edge of Zurforst Wesel, 315th Regiment had moved across to the division’s southern flank and during the course of the night Colonel Schriner took up positions alongside 313th Regiment on the Neue-Ernscher Canal. With 30th Division close to breaking out of Staatsforst Wesel, General Anderson had decided it was time to widen his grip on the east bank of the Rhine. At first light 79th Division would attack south heading for the Rhine-Herne Canal.