Battle of Aachen

[4][5] The city had been incorporated into the Siegfried Line, the main defensive network on Germany's western border; the Allies had hoped to capture it quickly and advance into the industrialized Ruhr basin.[9] On 17 September, British, American, and Polish forces launched Operation Market Garden,[10] an ambitious attempt to bypass the Siegfried Line by crossing the Lower Rhine River in the Netherlands.[16] In September, the Wehrmacht high command's reinforcement of the Siegfried Line brought total troop strength up to an estimated 230,000 soldiers, including 100,000 fresh personnel.[19] Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, set their sights on the occupation of the Ruhr, Germany's industrial heartland.[30] Learning from their experiences on the Eastern Front, the Germans ran their main line of resistance down the center of towns located in the defensive wall, taking advantage of narrow streets to limit the mobility of enemy armored vehicles.[41] Between 14 and 16 September the US 1st Infantry Division continued its advance in the face of strong defenses and repeated counterattacks, ultimately creating a half-moon arc around the city.[42] This slow advance came to a halt in late September, due to the supply problem, and the diversion of existing stocks of fuel and ammunition for Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands.[64] The American replacement system, which focused on quantity over quality, ensured that the majority of fresh troops reaching the front lines were not properly trained for combat.[70] Although the heavy bombardment forced the German LXXXI Corps to halt all daylight personnel and supply movements, it had little effect on the pillboxes and strongpoints.[79] (Private Harold G. Kiner would be awarded the Medal of Honor for throwing himself on a German grenade near Palenberg, thus saving the lives of two fellow soldiers.)[80] Fighting in the town of Rimburg was equally terrible; American armor had not been able to get across the Wurm River, and therefore could not provide fire support to infantrymen who were attempting to storm a medieval castle being used as a fort by the Germans.[83] On the night of 2 October, the German 902nd Assault Gun Battalion was ordered to launch a counterattack against the 30th Infantry Division, but Allied artillery delayed the start of the raid, and ultimately the attempt failed.Although the inability to retake Übach persuaded German commanders that they had insufficient forces to properly defend the approaches to Aachen, the counterattacks did tie down American troops which could have otherwise continued the advance.[88] On 4 October, the Allied advance was limited, with only the towns of Hoverdor and Beggendorf taken, the Americans having lost roughly 1,800 soldiers in the past three days of combat.[92] They found themselves severely hamstrung by lack of reserves,[93] although General Koechling was able to deploy a Tiger detachment to the town of Alsdorf in an attempt to plug the American penetration of Aachen's northern defenses.[94] A counterattack developed on 8 October, composed of an infantry regiment, the 1st Assault Battalion, a battle group of the 108th Panzer Brigade, and some 40 armored fighting vehicles scavenged from available units.[102] On Crucifix Hill, Captain Bobbie E. Brown, commander of C Company, 18th Infantry, personally silenced three pillboxes with pole charges[103] and, despite being wounded, continued to lead his men into the attack, earning the Medal of Honor.[107] On 10 October, General Huebner delivered an ultimatum to German forces in Aachen, threatening to bomb the city into submission if the garrison did not surrender.[121] On the next day, the Germans attempted to mount local counterattacks with the 3rd Panzergrenadier Division, but, after sustaining heavy losses, were forced to suspend further offensive action.[129] Needing most of its manpower to stave off German counterattacks and secure the area around Aachen, the 1st Infantry Division was able to earmark only a single regiment for the job of taking the city.[136] Success in Aachen was measured by the number of houses captured, as the advance proved to be sluggish; in order to cope with the thick walls of the older buildings in the city, the 26th Infantry Regiment used its howitzer at point blank range to destroy German fortifications.Their mission was to assault in the north, protecting the flank of the 3rd Battalion of the 26th Infantry while seizing the heights that dominated the central part of Aachen overlooking the German command posts located at the Hotel Quellenhof.Once the Lousberg heights were captured, Task Force Hogan would proceed down the reverse slope in order to cut off the Aachen-Laurensberg highway, thus preventing a German counterattack from the Northeast.[156] Following the end of fighting in Aachen, the Western Allies' First Army was tasked with the capture of a series of dams behind the Hürtgen Forest, which could be used by the Germans to flood the valleys which opened the road to Berlin.[158] Franz Oppenhoff was appointed Mayor of Aachen by the Allies on 31 October, but after his identity was leaked, he was assassinated on Heinrich Himmler's orders in Unternehmen Karneval (Operation Carnival) on 25 March 1945.