At 0930 the first of five counterattacks that day began. They came mostly from the south and east, where woods extended to the base of the hill and gave the Germans cover almost all the way, in company-size strength. Months later Major Williams told Sergeant Forrest Pogue of the Historical Section, “In some cases Germans were in and around the bunker on the hill before the Rangers were aware of their presence. They used machine guns, burp guns, rifles, and threw potato masher grenades. Hand-to-hand fights developed in which some use was made of bayonets.”
Through the day and into the night the Germans attacked Hill 400. At times, Lieutenant Lomell remembered, “we were outnumbered ten to one. We had no protection, continuous tons of shrapnel falling upon us, hundreds of rounds coming in.” In 1995 he commented, “June 6, 1944, was not my longest day. December 7th, 1944, was my longest and most miserable day on earth during my past 75 years.”
As Ranger numbers dwindled and ammunition began to run out, the American artillery saved the men. The field of vision was such that a forward observer, Lieutenant Howard Kettlehut from the 56th Armoured Field Artillery Battalion, could call in fire all around the hill. The Rangers later said Kettlehut was “the best man we ever worked with.” During the night ammo bearers got to the top of the hill and brought down wounded on litters-terribly difficult on the snow, ice, and rocks. The combined strength of the three companies left on top was five officers and eighty-six men. Lomell was wounded.
Late on December 8 an infantry regiment and tank destroyer battalion relieved the surviving Rangers. A week and two days later, the Germans retook the hill. Not until February 1945 did the Americans get it back. The Rangers had suffered 90 per cent casualties.
WITH THE Battle of Hill 400, the Htirtgen campaign came to a close. The forest they held, for which they had paid such a high price, was worthless.
The Battle of Htirtgen lasted ninety days. Nine divisions plus supporting units on the American side were involved. There were more than 24,000 combat casualties, another 9,000 victims of disease or combat exhaustion. German general Rolf von Gersdorff commented after the war, “I have engaged in the long campaigns in Russia as well as other fronts and I believe the fighting in the Hiirtgen was the heaviest I have ever witnessed.”
On December 8, from Hill 400, Lieutenant Eikner remembered: “We could see across the Rur River to a town called Nideggen. Trains were puffing in there and bringing in troops and all.”
They were heading south. Eikner had cause to feel discouraged. If, after all that pounding, the Germans were building a reserve somewhere to the south, why then it was the Germans, not the Americans, who had won the battles of attrition in the fall of 1944. The Americans had no reserve at all, save the 82nd and 101st Airborne, which were near Reims, being brought up to strength after the Holland campaign. Every other division in ETO was committed to offensive action.
Chapter Seven
The Ardennes: December 16-19, 1944
WHEN THE Americans reached the German border, their best intelligence sources dried up. Inside Germany the Wehrmacht used secure telephone lines rather than radio, which rendered Ultra, the British deciphering device, deaf and blind. Weather kept reconnaissance aircraft on the ground. And in the Ardennes patrols were rare and seldom aggressive, as each side was willing to leave the other alone so long as things stayed quiet. There the line had been stagnant for two months.
In early December, Eisenhower reviewed the situation on the Western Front with Bradley. His overwhelming goal was to strengthen US First and Ninth armies to continue the winter offensive north of Aachen. Turning to the centre of his line, he and Bradley discussed the weakness in the Ardennes. Four divisions, two green, two so worn down by Hiirtgen fighting that they had been withdrawn and sent to this rest area to refit, spread over a 150-kilometre front, seemed to invite a counterattack.
Bradley said it would be unprofitable to the Germans to make such an attack. Of course the Germans had sliced right through the area in May 1940, but that was against almost no opposition, in good weather. The generals agreed that the newly formed Volkssturm divisions were hardly capable of offensive action through the Ardennes on winter roads. So they told each other that an Ardennes attack would be a strategic mistake for the enemy.