THE HUERTGEN FOREST

On December tenth the regiment moved from Luxembourg to replace the 8th Infantry Regiment in the Huertgen Forest. The 8th had taken a lot of punishment in the forest campaign and was reduced to about half-strength. The men were in dugouts and bunkers on the slopes of the wooded hills that lead down to the Ruhr river. The terrain was not attractive. The hills were covered with about six inches of snow, the snow blackened from shell bursts. The tops had been shot out of most of the trees by the explosions of artillery shells. Motor movements were restricted to a few forest trails and on these, jeeps had a tendency to "belly." Jeeps have good traction when their wheels will reach the ground but they do not have much ground clearance, and they belly easily. The regiment had to use a half-track as a kind of trouble vehicle to push the jeeps out of the snow when they got stuck. All this and the fact that we were bivouacked in the snow -- there were no buildings in the forest -- was not pleasant. We decided to do something about it.

Beyond the edge of the woods there was some open farm land and then the Ruhr river. Along the river there were several small towns and, on the other side, the city of Duren. The Germans' first line of defense was in the forest, their soldiers in dugouts and log bunkers like ours. Their supporting units were in the villages of Gurzenich, Birgil, and Rohlsdorf, and these were backed up by the big guns of the Siegfried Line. The houses in those villages looked pretty good when the alternative was sleeping in the snow. The regiment jumped off in attack on December twelfth, taking some of the German strong points by marching fire and outflanking others. The fighting was wicked and at close range. The attackers were either killed or they overran and killed the defenders. In times like these in infantry combat human life doesn't seem to be important. By nightfall we had reached the villa of Hof Hardt, the only shelter in the woods. The German artillery in the Siegfried Line was not idle. Its shells were fused so that they exploded in the tops of the trees and showered down a rain of hot metal. Being behind a tree wasn't much help. The fragments drove straight down.

The 2nd Battalion, under Major Sharpe, was the first to break out of the forest. The village of Gurzenich, its long axis toward the river, was a few hundred yards beyond the edge of the forest. "G" Company, taking advantage of what little cover there was, dashed across the open ground and got a foothold in the edge of the town. Thereafter, fighting house to house, by nightfall it had reached a point halfway through the village, with "E" and "F" Companies close behind.

During the night our engineers cleared the road through the forest of its mines, and by daylight our tanks had reached the edge of the forest. The next day Company "B," with its men riding on the tanks, charged through the 2nd Battalion and on up to the Ruhr river. The main German defenses were in trenches near the bank of the river, facing toward the forest. When the tanks carrying "B" Company reached the river they changed direction to the right and came up behind the German trenches. This was too much for the Germans; they came out with their hands up.

In the meantime Major Speedie's 3rd Battalion had launched a marching fire attack against the village of Bergil. Moving out of the forest in one wide front, every man alternately firing and moving forward, they moved inexorably upon the defenders of Bergil. The distance was about 500 yards -- usually too far for assault fire -- but it was completely successful, and Bergil fell in about twenty minutes.

The 1st Battalion continued from Gurzenich up the river to Rohlsdorf, and captured it. We were out of the forest and up to the Ruhr river. We could have crossed the Ruhr river at this time but there were some dams upstream, and higher command thought we might be flooded out if the dams were opened. A patrol was sent across the river into Duren -- the river was shallow enough for wading -- reporting that they saw no enemy troops.

The regiment had captured about 400 German soldiers in clearing the bank of the Ruhr, and we thought that would be the end of the campaign. We were too optimistic. On December sixteenth the famous Battle of the Bulge began. The main penetration was farther east than our sector but a strong secondary penetration of armor and infantry, supported by artillery from the Siegfried Line, was attempted at the same time against our 3rd Battalion in Bergil. The outcome was doubtful for a while but eventually the Germans were defeated and driven back across the Ruhr river. This engagement brought out the greatest example of heroism we had during the war. Sergeant Ralph Neppel had been posted with his machine gun squad to defend the main approach to Bergil from the Ruhr river. A German tank, accompanied by a squad of infantry, attacked his position. All the members of the machine gun crew except Neppel were killed. Neppel was blown back from the machine gun and both of his legs were shot off. The Germans, assuming all were killed, proceeded toward the town. Neppel was still conscious and crawling back to his machine gun on his elbows, he righted the gun and fired a burst of fire into the infantry accompanying the tank, killing all of them. The tank, without its infantry protection, was too vulnerable to bazookas to continue. It turned around and went back across the river. Neppel, strangely, survived his wounds and later received the Congressional Medal of Honor. He presently is able to get around on the stumps of his legs. After the war a motor company presented him with a tractor that he could operate entirely with his hands.

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