They received stiff resistance from the 108.Panzer-Brigade and the Mobile Regiment von Fritzschen, recently arrived in their sector from the I.SS-Panzer-Corps. On the eastern flank, the Mobile Regiment von Fritzschen successfully blocked the US 117-IR at Mariadorf. Then on Oct 8, the Mobile Regiment attacked northwest towards Schaufenberg and Alsdorf searching for the regiment’s flank. This move threatened to encircle them. Fortunately, elements of the US 743-TB were roaming the streets of Alsdorf when the Mobile Regiment entered the city. The tanks and tank destroyers of the US 743-TB quickly took out three Mark IV tanks. The shock effect of this halted the German counter-attack. The US 117-IR then re-established the division’s left flank during their counter-attack on Oct 9.
On the western flank, the US 120-IR quickly moved to its objective of north Wurselen, a mere 2000 yards from the link-up point at Ravels Hill. However, their quick advance had overextended their lines, and on Oct 9, the 108.Panzer-Brigade counter-attacked into Bardenberg, threatening the US 120-IR’s line of communication. It took three days of counter-attacks by both the IS 120-IR and the US 119-IR to uproot the Germans from Bardenberg. On Oct 11, the skies cleared, enabling the Army Air Force to attack the columns of German counter-attack forces. With the help of air power and field artillery, the US 30-ID retained a tenuous hold on its initial objectives.
Meanwhile, the southern prong attack of the encircling offensive commenced on Oct 8. In order to offset its numerical disadvantage with surprise, the US 18-IR (1-ID) conducted its attack in the pre-dawn darkness. As a result, the regiment successfully captured all of its initial objectives with minimal resistance. By evening on Oct 9, the US 18-IR was in possession of Ravels Hill, the designated link-up point with the US XIX Corps. In addition, by Oct 10, the regiment had captured Haaren, a suburb of Aachen astride the two major highways leading east out of the city. Thus, the US 18-IR had cut the Germans’ lines of communication into the city. The real challenge was to hold their objectives despite vicious German counter-attacks. These counter-attacks typically consisted of massive artillery barrages, followed by infantry attacks supported by tanks and assault guns. Ironically, the American troops often occupied the very pillboxes they had cleared earlier in order to defend against the German counter-attacks. Fighting was often from pillbox-to-pillbox, foxhole-to-foxhole, hand-to-hand. Because of the constant German local counter-attacks, the US 30-ID and the US 1-ID had still not effected a link-up. Despite this gap in the encirclement, Gen Huebner delivered his surrender ultimatum to the garrison of Aachen on Oct 10.
The task of assaulting the city fell to Col John Seitz’s US 26-IR (1-ID). At his disposal, he had two battalions, Lt Col Derrill Daniel’s 2/26 and Lt Col John Corley’s 3/26. Daniel’s battalion would cross the Aachen–Koln railroad and assault through the center of the city, while Corley’s battalion would initially attack around the north of the city to recapture the suburb of Haaren, then attack southwest to capture the dominating high-ground on the northern side of the city. This high ground consisted of several points of key terrain. The highest terrain was Lousberg, called the Observatory Hill by the Americans because of the obvious building on top. Below this Observatory Hill was the Salvatorberg, a lower hill with a cathedral on it. Below the Salvatorberg was the Farwick Park, slightly elevated on the east side of Aachen. The Farwick Park was even more important because the Quellenhof Hotel was located in it, and this is where the 246.VGD’s headquarters was installed.
While the Americans were preparing to take the city, the Germans were still holding out hope that they could relieve the siege. Even as the American air bombardment and artillery barrage delivered over 300 tons of explosives on Aachen on Oct 11 and 12, elements of the 3.Panzer-Division and the rebuilt 116.Panzer-Division began to arrive to reinforce the LXXXI Corps. In addition, Koechling sent the Battalion Rink (1.SS-Battalion) into the city to reinforce the 246.VGD. On Oct 12, Lt Col Corley’s 3/26 commenced its attack by securing the suburb of Haaren. Then on Oct 13, the battalion began its attack to seize the Observatory Hill, while Lt Col Daniel’s 2/26 simultaneously began its assault into the center of the city. Daniel had anticipated very determined German resistance during his assault and had prepared his men for the fight. Artillery and mortars would pummel the streets ahead of advancing infantry. The pattern of indirect fire was coordinated by city blocks. Once the clearing teams reached a certain point, the indirect fire would shift to the next city block. Infantry squads clearing houses were given either a tank or a tank destroyer to suppress houses and buildings as the infantry approached. Once the infantry reached the house, the tank or tank destroyer would shift fires to begin suppressing the next house or building. The infantry and combat engineers would clear buildings using flamethrowers, hand grenades, and demolition charges.
Checkpoints were established at street intersections and no unit could advance beyond a checkpoint without coordinating with their adjacent unit at that checkpoint. These measures made the advance very slow and deliberate but were necessary to ensure there would be no pockets of enemy resistance left behind and to prevent fratricide. Despite the deliberate nature of the assault, the Germans fought viciously both in the city and outside against the American encirclement. The Germans used the sewers very effectively, which took the Americans by surprise at first. Because of this, the attacking Americans would weld each manhole shut as they progressed through the streets. Also, the Germans effectively used cellars and basements. They even knocked down walls between the cellars of adjacent buildings so they could move troops from one building to another. They found that the reinforced concrete walls of the more modern apartment buildings could withstand direct fire from even tanks and tank destroyers, so they turned every apartment building into a collection of room-to-room strong points. The only way the Americans found to penetrate such buildings was to use 155-MM howitzers in direct fire mode.
Outside the city, German forces continued to attack to break the encirclement. On Oct 12, two regiments of the 116.PD, the 60.PGR and the Kampfgruppe Diefenthal, attacked the towns of Birk and the north of Wurselen to break the US 30-ID’s encirclement. The American defense of these positions played out like a ballet of reinforcing units. While individual small groups held their ground, battalions, regiments, and the division would rapidly feed reserve forces into any penetration of their lines. The see-saw fighting between the 116.PD and the US 30-ID continued through Oct 15.
Meanwhile, by Oct 14, Lt Col Corley’s 3/26 had advanced into the Farwick Park. On that same day, forward positions of the US 18-IR near Verlautenheide reported the buildup of German forces opposite their positions. These forces were the 29.PGR and the 8.PGR, the leading forces of the 3.PD, more reinforcements from the I.SS-Panzer-Corps. On Oct 15, Corley’s 3/26 advanced through the Farwick Park and put the Quellenhof Hotel under siege with a 155-MM howitzer. On that same day, the 3.PD launched its attack against the US 1-ID in the vicinity of Verlautenheide. Though completely uncoordinated, the SS Battalion Rink also launched a localized counter-attack in the Farwick Park, driving back the 3/26.
With two major fights going on, Gen Huebner deemed the attack by the 3.PD to be of the greatest threat and ordered Lt Col Corley’s offensive within Aachen to cease until the threat to the encirclement could be defeated. Gen Huebner had pulled his US 116-IR (29-ID att. to 30-ID)(Col Joe Dawson), into the encirclement from the south to bolster the weakened US 18-IR. Despite this reinforcement and the use of massive artillery barrages by the Americans, the regiments of the 3.PD overran two companies of the US 16-IR and one company of the US 18-IR, puncturing the inter-regimental boundary between them. Just then, bombers and fighters came to the US 1-ID’s rescue, defeating the 3.PD’s attack. The German attack continued on Oct 16, but the Americans held their positions, even against point-blank tank fire. On that day, using tank destroyers and artillery fires, the 3.PD’s attack was finally defeated, and the US 1-ID remained in control of the <Ravels Hill and the Verlautenheide area.
In the US 30-ID’s sector, fighting was at a standstill. Hobbs had failed to take Wurselen despite receiving reinforcements from the US XIX Corps on Oct 13 in the form of a tank battalion from the US 2-AD and a regiment from the US 29-ID. The US 30-ID finally captured Wurselen on Oct 16 with a two-pronged assault to the south, driving the 116.PD from the field in final defeat. At 1615, Oct 16, a patrol from the US 30-ID linked up with the US 1-ID’s outpost on the Ravels Hill. The encirclement of Aachen was complete. Gen Collins, US VII Corps commander, had finally grown impatient with the drawn-out siege of Aachen. During the lull in the fighting within the city, he reinforced the US 26-IR (1-ID) with two tank battalions and an armored infantry battalion. He ordered Huebner to resume the assault of Aachen no later than Oct 18.
For Oberst Wilck and his men of the 246.VGD, the encirclement sealed their fate. Even as von Rundstedt ordered Wilck to hold the city even if he were to be buried in its ruins, he withdrew the decimated I.SS-Panzer-Corps units back from Aachen. Wilck moved his headquarters from the Quellenhof Hotel to an air raid bunker at the north end of the Lousberg heights (Rutscherstrasse). He hunkered down and waited for the American assault to commence. On Oct 18, Huebner began his final offensive to take the city. They immediately took the Quellenhof, only to find that Wilck had moved. Even with crumbling German resistance, the deliberate securing of the city took several days. On Oct 20, the Americans had located Wilck’s new headquarters and were tightening the ring around it. Corley once again pulled up his 155-MM howitzer to pummel the air raid bunker. After being bombarded during the night of Oct 20, Wilck finally surrendered at 1205 on Oct 21, 1944.
The American victory at Aachen was a costly one. The UD 30-ID incurred some 3000 casualties during their encircling attack from the north. The US 26-IR (1-ID), the force that assaulted the city, had a combined total of 498 casualties. The fight had used up every reserve of both the US 30-ID and the 1-ID. Though the actual siege of the city had taken only 10 days, the operations to encircle Aachen had taken six weeks.
On the German side, the vaunted I.SS-Panzer-Corps had lost 50 percent of its combat power and retreated from Aachen in defeat. The LXXXI Corps was decimated, having completely lost the 246.VGD in the surrender of Aachen. The city itself lay in ruins, with 80 percent of the buildings in rubble. The long-term implications of the battle for Aachen are mixed. By capturing Aachen, the US 1-A had accomplished one of its intermediate objectives of crossing the Rhine River and capturing the Ruhr Industrial Bassin. No doubt, the loss of Aachen was a psychological blow to the Germans and must have infuriated Hitler.
The securing of Aachen also allowed Gen Omar N. Bradley (CG US 12-AG) to insert a new Army, the US 9-A (Gen William Simpson), into his lines, thus affording more combat power to the US 12-AG. However, considering the amount of time and resources that the siege of Aachen consumed, the battle must be considered a strategic victory for the Germans because it gave Hitler the time he needed to build his forces for the Ardennes counter-offensive in December 1944.
The real value in studying the Battle of Aachen is the lessons that the battle teaches to our Army today. As the world becomes more and more urbanized, the likelihood that American forces will be required to conduct Mounted Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) in future conflicts is extremely high. Many of the tactics, techniques, and procedures used during the assault on Aachen still remain relevant today. The most important lesson to learn from the Battle of Aachen is the importance of combined arms operations in urban warfare. As Lt Col Daniels’ US 2/26 showed us, conducting urban fighting requires all the BOS elements. His use of artillery forward of the assault teams to clear the streets, his use of tanks and tank destroyers in direct fire mode to suppress strong points, and his use of infantry and engineers to clear buildings are all relevant TTPs in modern-day urban warfare and are even part of our doctrine. Daniels also used command and control methods equally useful today in order to prevent bypassing enemy resistance and fratricide by establishing checkpoints at street intersections.
Gen Hobbs demonstrated the importance of intelligence in urban warfare during the attack by the US 30-ID to seize the northern part of Wurselen; because his determined patrolling had revealed many of the locations of the enemy’s positions, his forces were able to focus their efforts to take them out. Other major lessons emerge from German mistakes, especially by Koechling. He committed his reinforcements (mainly the I.SS-Panzer-Corps) piecemeal, rather than waiting to consolidate the arriving units and staging a major counter-offensive. This is a counter-example of the principle of mass. The American forces only did a slightly better job of applying mass when committing their reinforcements. Where the Americans had a distinct advantage was not necessarily the ability to mass units but the ability to mass fires. Artillery and air power must also be massed, and the Americans constantly made up for their weaknesses on the ground with overwhelming firepower. An excellent example of this was the use of air power to defeat the counter-attacks of the 108.Panzer-Brigade in Bardenberg, aimed at enveloping Col Purdue’s US 120-IR (30-ID) on Oct 11. A third major lesson is the importance of command and control and tactical patience. The US 26-IR’s assault on Aachen was very slow and deliberate.
Often, when in the offense, forces rush to reach their objectives, but in urban warfare, slow is better. Every pocket of resistance must be eliminated and every strong point neutralized. Tedious tasks like welding man-hole covers shut and coordinating with adjacent units at every street corner are time-consuming, but are critical to force protection in urban combat. Combined arms operations, decisive massing of fires, inventive command and control techniques, and tactical patience are principles equally applicable to the modern day urban battlefield as to the battlefield of Aachen. There are many more lessons to be learned from the history of urban combat, not just at the Battle of Aachen, but other cities as well, and many more when considering battles in other countries. Even more importantly, studying the history of urban combat teaches military professionals an appreciation for the bravery and determination needed to fight under these conditions, as displayed by the soldiers of the US 30 and the US 1st Infantry Divisions.
