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THE BATTLE FOR
GEILENKIRCHEN
Number 140
4 0
9
770306
154080
£3.95
NUMBER 140
© Copyright
After the Battle
2008
Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. Ramsey
Managing Editor: Gordon Ramsey
Editor: Karel Margry
Published by
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GEILENKIRCHEN
CONTENTS
THE BATTLE FOR GEILENKIRCHEN
VETERANS RETURN
1945 Battlefield Tour
UNITED KINGDOM
The Dickin Medal and the PDSA
Animal Cemetery
2
34
Situated close to the border and north of Aachen, Geilenkirchen was a lynchpin position
of the German Siegfried Line and its seizure would eliminate a German salient protruding
into Allied lines and remove a threat to the American offensive towards the Roer river.
46
Front Cover:
The remains of a Siegfried Line
bunker, preserved just south of the village of
Beeck, three miles north-east of Geilenkirchen, in
west Germany. The scene of heavy fighting in
November 1944, most of the bunkers in the
Geilenkirchen area were demolished and cleared
away after the war, but this fragment was left
standing as a memorial to the German and Ameri-
can soldiers who fell in combat around Beeck – see
page 32. (Karel Margry)
Centre Pages:
American combat engineers blow-
ing up a Siegfried Line bunker near Geilenkirchen
in November 1944. Most Westwall bunkers were
dynamited by the Allies immediately after capture
so as make them militarily useless.(IWM)
Inset top:
A British soldier talking to two American soldiers
in shell-torn Geilenkirchen on November 21, two
days after the town was captured. (IWM)
Bottom:
The same corner of Hünshovener Markt in rebuilt
Geilenkirchen today. (Karel Margry)
Back Cover:
Author Gail Parker with Oliver and Rosie
at the grave of Rip, awarded the Dickin Medal for
service during the Blitz on London — see page 50.
Acknowledgements:
For
help
with
the
Geilenkirchen story, the Editor would like to thank
Martijn Bakker, Lieutenant-Colonel Nick Lock,
Johan van Doorn and Hans Houterman. He
extends his appreciation to David Paradise for his
help with the story on the 1945 Battlefield Tour.
Photo Credits:
IWM – Imperial War Museum, Lon-
don; USNA – US National Archives.
The Geilenkirchen offensive was badly hampered by the atrocious weather conditions
that characterised the late autumn of 1944. Normal average for this region of Germany
was 15 days of rain in November but in November 1944 it rained on 28 days. The exces-
sive rainfall and almost constant cloudiness grounded air forces, reduced aerial observa-
tion, turned fields into bogs, foxholes into wells, clogged weapons with mud and bound
vehicles to roads. This scene of a tank soldier of the Sherwood Rangers picking his way
through the mud to get water for tea, pictured east of Geilenkirchen by Captain Bill
Malindine on November 24, is symbolic of the conditions that the troops had to fight in.
2
IWM B12044
On November 18, 1944, the Allies launched an assault to cap-
ture the German town of Geilenkirchen. Located as it was right
on the boundary between the British and American armies in
Europe, Geilenkirchen was reduced in a joint Anglo-American
operation — code-named ‘Clipper ‘ — involving both the British
43rd (Wessex) Division and the US 84th Infantry Division,
with British armour providing support to both formations.
For the British Army it was their first major battle on German
soil. Taken to symbolise the co-operation of the two armies,
this picture shows British tank crews and American doughboys
joining in a sing-song in front of a British flail tank outside
Geilenkirchen. The tankers belong to B Squadron of the Lothi-
ans and Border Yeomanry, a unit of the 79th Armoured Division,
and the GIs to the 334th Infantry of the 84th Infantry Division.
THE BATTLE FOR GEILENKIRCHEN
Geilenkirchen is a small German town
located 14 miles north of Aachen and close
to the German-Dutch border. Situated in the
valley of the sluggish Wurm river, in the mid-
dle of a dreary, drab coal-mining district, it is
a minor traffic centre controlling main roads
in four directions, to Heinsberg in the north,
Düren in the east, Aachen in the south and
across the border to Sittard and Heerlen in
the west. An industrial town of no particular
further interest, with a pre-war population of
9,000, it gained major tactical importance in
the autumn of 1944 because it was a corner-
stone stronghold in one of the strongest sec-
tions of the Siegfried Line (or Westwall as
the Germans called it), the much-daunted
belt of fortifications protecting Germany’s
western border.
North of Aachen, the Siegfried Line fol-
lowed the course of the Wurm river, which
flows through Geilenkirchen and then north-
wards another seven miles to join the Roer
near Heinsberg. On either side of the Wurm
the ground rises to high-ground plateaus,
slightly higher on the east bank than on the
west. Along this high ground, on both sides
of the river but more strongly on the eastern
side, lay the fixed defences of the Siegfried
Line. West of the Wurm these consisted
mainly of minefields and barbed wire. East
of the river, following the hills that ran paral-
lel to it, was the main belt of pillboxes,
bunkers and casemates, mounting innumer-
able machine guns and anti-tank guns. The
river itself had been cleverly exploited as an
anti-tank barrier, augmented here and there
with dragon-teeth obstacles.
By the beginning of November 1944,
American troops had been in the area over-
looking Geilenkirchen for some time. The
30th Division of the US XIX Corps of the US
First Army had already penetrated the
Siegfried Line at a point three miles south of
Geilenkirchen in early October and, fanning
out from Übach-Palenberg, had brought the
front line to within a mile of the town. There
the front had stabilised and remained static
for six weeks. Geilenkirchen now formed the
tip of a German salient, a wedge in the
Allied line.
On October 22, the newly operational US
Ninth Army, commanded by Lieutenant
General William H. Simpson, arrived in the
area. Tasked with holding the left flank of
General Omar N. Bradley’s US 12th Army
Group, the army took control of the section
of the line from just north of Aachen to the
boundary with Field Marshal Bernard Mont-
gomery’s British 21st Army Group at Maas-
eik in the Netherlands. This section included
Geilenkirchen.
In early November, the Supreme Allied
Commander, General Dwight D. Eisenhower,
concentrated the US First and Ninth Armies
on a narrow front and directed them to attack
in the general direction of Cologne. As a first
step, the two armies would launch an offensive
— code-named Operation ‘Queen’ — to gain
bridgeheads over the Roer river at Düren,
Jülich and Linnich. With the Americans nar-
rowing their front, British Second Army was
shifted south to take over part of the Ninth
Army front. British XXX Corps, commanded
by Lieutenant-General Sir Brian Horrocks
By Karel Margry
and comprising the 43rd (Wessex) Division,
the Guards Armoured Division and the 8th
Armoured Brigade, was moved south from
Nijmegen in the Netherlands and on Novem-
ber 10 assumed control of the 17-mile sector
between Maaseik and Geilenkirchen, immedi-
ately to the north of the US Ninth Army.
Assigned to hold the southern half of the corps
sector, the 43rd Division relieved the 407th
Infantry Regiment of the US 102nd Division
and occupied the line from the village of
Birgden in the north to Geilenkirchen in the
south. Thus Geilenkirchen came to lie on the
boundary between the British and American
forces.
Geilenkirchen itself was assigned to the
American sector. Planning his ‘Queen’ offen-
sive, General Simpson of the Ninth Army
realised that he could not strike eastward to
the Roer and leave Geilenkirchen untaken.
It would stand as a threat to his left flank and
rear and, moreover, it controlled badly-
needed main roads to Heinsberg and Linnich
on the Roer. The town had to be taken. Yet
if he included the town in his operation, the
momentum of his drive would almost cer-
tainly become slowed down by the costly
house-to-house fighting that it would entail.
Capturing the town would require at least
one division, probably two, and Simpson had
only one division available, the untried 84th
Infantry Division. Simpson decided to ask
the neighbouring British XXX Corps to do
the job.
3
HOVEN
DORSET
WOOD
TRIPSRATH
WÜRM
RISCHDEN
GILLRATH
NIEDERHEIDE
HOCHHEID
MÜLLENDORF
BEECK
SÜGGERATH
BAUCHEM
FRONT LINE NOVEMBER 18
GEILENKIRCHEN
PRÜMMERN
X
Br. 43rd
X
US 84th
The Geilenkirchen battlefield. We have marked the places that featured largely in Operation ‘Clipper’.
On November 10, Simpson visited General
Horrocks at his headquarters at Beek in Hol-
land and put the proposal to him. Horrocks
initially declined, explaining that, as much as
he would like to help, he too had only one
division, the 43rd, at his disposal. Neither
21st Army Group nor Second Army were
prepared to give him any additional troops.
A few days later, Simpson invited Hor-
rocks to his headquarters in Maastricht for
an evening with him and Eisenhower. After
dinner, Eisenhower jokingly asked: ‘Well
Jorrocks [his nickname], are you going to
take on Geilenkirchen for us?’ Horrocks
again explained that he had just one division
for what was clearly a two-division task.
Eisenhower turned to Simpson and said:
‘Give him one of ours’. Simpson offered him
the 84th Division. The American generals
brushed aside Horrocks’ objections that it
was unfair to give such a difficult task to an
untried division, and so Geilenkirchen
became a XXX Corps responsibility.
Horrocks decided to encircle Geilen-
kirchen by an attack from the south-east by
the 84th Division and an attack from the
north-west by the 43rd Division. Code-
named Operation ‘Clipper’, the attack was
originally to start on November 16, one day
after the start of Operation ‘Queen’, but it
was postponed one day, to the 18th, in the
hope that ‘Queen’ might draw away German
troops from the town. The plan of attack was
divided into four phases.
Firstly, at 0700 on November 18, one regi-
ment of the 84th Division, the 334th Infantry,
would jump off on the right flank of the
salient to capture the high ground east and
north-east of Geilenkirchen around the vil-
lage of Prümmern.
4
Secondly, at 1230 the same day, the 43rd
Division would attack on the left flank of the
salient, launching its 214th Brigade to win
the high ground between the villages of
Tripsrath and Bauchem, north and west of
Geilenkirchen.
Thirdly, with Geilenkirchen thus virtually
encircled, at 0700 the next day, a second regi-
ment of the 84th Division, the 333rd
Infantry, would take Geilenkirchen itself in a
frontal attack and continue a mile and a half
northward up the Wurm valley to the village
of Süggerath.
Finally, in a fourth phase, the 43rd Divi-
sion was to continue to clear the west bank of
the Wurm as far as Waldenrath, Straeten and
Hoven, three villages located about three
miles to the north of Geilenkirchen, while
the 84th Division pushed beyond Süggerath
and Prümmern to another trio of villages –
Müllendorf, Würm and Beeck — about
equally distant from Geilenkirchen.
Taking all these objectives would elimi-
nate the German salient between the British
Second Army and the American Ninth Army
(and between the British 21st Army Group
and US 12th Army Group) and produce a
neat front line that would describe a broad
arc from the Maas river near Maasbracht to
the Wurm river about Hoven and thence
north-eastward along the Aachen-Mönchen-
gladbach railway. This would provide the
Ninth Army with a good springboard for the
final push across the remaining two and a
half miles to the Roer river at Linnich.
Pushing northwards along both sides of
the Wurm valley, Operation ‘Clipper’ would
not be a frontal attack on the Siegfried Line
but be directed along the long axis of the for-
tified belt. This presented a formidable task
for it meant the 84th Division would have to
fight its way though an almost endless con-
tinuation of bunkers and pillboxes. It also
meant the 43rd Division, on the other side of
the Wurm, would advance over lower ground
in full view of the large-calibre Siegfried Line
guns.
Apart from the fact that one was British
and the other American, the two divisions
earmarked for the Geilenkirchen operation
were decidedly different in background and
experience.
The 43rd (Wessex) Division was a vet-
eran formation, seasoned by five months of
almost continuous combat. Commanded by
Major-General Ivor Thomas, it had landed
in Normandy at the end of June and fought
in the battles of the Odon river, Hill 112 and
Mont Pinçon; made the assault crossing
over the Seine river at Vernon in August
(see
After the Battle
Nos. 18 and 119) and
participated in the Arnhem battle in Sep-
tember.
The US 84th Infantry Division, on the
other hand, was totally green and untried in
battle. Commanded by Brigadier General
Alexander R. Bolling, it had only landed in
France on November 1. Assigned to the XIII
Corps of the US Ninth Army, it had arrived
in the Geilenkirchen area on the 10th. One
of its three infantry regiments, the 335th, had
been attached to the 30th Division the fol-
lowing day and would not be available for
the Geilenkirchen attack. To make up for it,
General Bolling was given a regiment of the
equally inexperienced 102nd Division, the
405th Infantry. This regiment had been hold-
ing the line south of Geilenkirchen since
October 26 and the 84th Division would
jump off through it.
To bolster up the green American troops,
Horrocks gave the 84th Division a seasoned
British tank battalion in support — the Not-
tinghamshire Yeomanry (The Sherwood
Rangers) of the 8th Armoured Brigade. (The
brigade’s other two battalions — the 4th/7th
Dragoon Guards and the 13th/18th Hussars
— would support the 43rd Division’s attack.)
In addition, to help the Americans make
the initial breakthrough and support them in
assaulting the Siegfried Line fortifications,
the 84th was assigned a force of specialised
armour from the British 79th Armoured
Division. Operating under command of
Colonel Henry Drew and known as Drew-
force this included Crab mine-flailing tanks
from B Squadron of the Lothians and Border
Yeomanry, Crocodile flame-throwing tanks
from A squadron of the 141st Royal
Armoured Corps, and AVRE (Assault Vehi-
cle Royal Engineers) tanks from the 617th
Assault Squadron, RE.
Lastly, the Americans were given a troop
of the 357th Searchlight Battery, RA. Their
four giant beacons, reflecting their beams off
low clouds, would provide artificial moon-
light in the pre-dawn hours of D-Day.
The British special armour units arrived in
the Geilenkirchen assault area on November
14. Their commanders lectured all American
regiments taking part in the operation on the
battle-proven methods of working of the
mine-clearing and flame-throwing tanks, dis-
cussing the forthcoming battle on cloth mod-
els. Finally, the practice was rehearsed with
the actual troops taking part.
Meanwhile, 43rd Division was planning
and preparing its part in the operation. With
129th Brigade holding the line, the two
assault brigades, the 214th and 130th, con-
centrated around the Dutch mining town of
Brunssum, five miles to the rear. To enable
these troops to reach the start line on D-Day,
Royal Engineers improved tracks and cut
lanes through the intervening woods and
across the wasteland, giving them such famil-
iar names as ‘Bond Street’, ‘Dover Street’,
‘Saville Row’ and ‘Piccadilly’. The traffic
plan for the battle was worked out in great
detail. The sappers also lifted some 1,400
mines, laid by the Americans in the preced-
ing weeks, but which would block the 214th
Brigade during its break-out. (An accidental
explosion of 700 of these mines on Novem-
ber 14 killed 14 men and fatally wounded
Brigadier Gerard Mole of the 129th
Brigade.) A massive amount of artillery
ammunition was assembled for the planned
artillery programme. Meanwhile, patrols
scouted out the enemy positions, and officers
studied aerial photographs and defence over-
print maps. All troops were thoroughly
briefed. In small groups, using cloth models,
the battalions were told how they fitted into
the general plan, and their missions were
explained in detail.
Attacking two days behind the main offen-
sive, XXX Corps benefited little from the
massive air bombardment that preceded
‘Queen’ on November 16, although Linnich
and Heinsberg were scheduled to be hit.
Instead, the corps received air support from
fighter-bombers provided both by the British
Second Tactical Air Force and the US XXIX
Tactical Air Command. Softening-up of the
German defences began as early as Novem-
ber 8 with a napalm strike on Geilenkirchen.
Defence of the Geilenkirchen salient was
the responsibility of the XII. SS-Armeekorps
under General der Infanterie Günther Blu-
mentritt, part of the German 15. Armee. In
the line from north to south, Blumentritt had
three divisions: the 176. Infanterie-Division
north-west of Geilenkirchen; the 183. Volks-
grenadier-Division, holding Geilenkirchen
and the sectors on either side, and the 49.
Infanterie-Division further to the south.
The 183. Volksgrenadier-Division, com-
manded by Generalleutnant Wolfgang
Lange, would suffer the initial onslaught of
In preparation for the upcoming operation, the 43rd Division’s Royal Engineers con-
structed main tracks through the heath and woodlands between the division’s
concentration areas at Brunssum in the Netherlands and the operation’s start line at
Gillrath in Germany. Named after well-known London streets, they facilitated a
speedy move forward on the first day but later, with rainy weather persisting, turned
into muddy tracks. Here a Military Policeman directs a 4th/7th Dragoon Guards truck
at the junction of ‘Bond Street’ and ‘Dover Street’.
Operation ‘Clipper’. Composed largely of
Austrian troops, at full strength and com-
pletely equipped, it had arrived in the West
to man the Westwall pillboxes north of
Aachen on September 17. Appearing just in
time to oppose the first American probes of
the bunker line, it had been involved in
heavy fighting and suffered losses, but these
had been partly made good by the attach-
ment of the personnel of two officer training
schools, the Unteroffiziersschulen Jülich and
Düren, which each made up a battalion-size
combat group. Pulled out of the line for rest
and reorganisation, in early November it was
committed to hold the Geilenkirchen sector.
By mid-November, the division’s forces
were divided as follows: Grenadier-Regiment
351, with only one of its organic battalions
(I. Bataillon) left but incorporating the two
officer training units, held the sector just
north of Geilenkirchen; Grenadier-Regiment
343 manned the central sector, its I. Bataillon
holding Geilenkirchen itself and II. Bataillon
Prümmern; and Grenadier-Regiment 330
occupied the southern part of the divisional
sector around Immendorf. The divisional
Artillerie-Regiment 219 had four batteries at
full strength and, to complement its power,
General Blumentritt had emplaced the bulk
of his corps artillery about Geilenkirchen.
Late on the 17th, reports of German tank
concentrations near Geilenkirchen brought
the worry to the Allies that a prompt Ger-
man counter-attack on the 84th Division was
‘very probable’ but General Bolling decided
not to change any of his plans, hoping he
might just beat the Germans to the punch.
Major-General Ivor Thomas, commander of the 43rd Division, motoring up in his Hum-
ber light reconnaissance car to observe the start of the Geilenkirchen attack on the
morning of November 18. In the rear seat, his ADC, Lieutenant Pat Spencer Moore.
5
IWM BU1428
IWM B12092

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