2 – 21 OCTOBER 1944 – BATTLE OF AACHEN #WWII.

 

 2 – 21 OCTOBER 1944 – BATTLE OF AACHEN #WWII. 

As the Allies’ “broad front” penetrated German-occupied territory in the autumn of 1944, General Omar Bradley of the 12th Army Group focused on the border city of Aachen, an ancient citadel of German culture and a core stronghold of the vaunted Siegfried Line.  

On 29 September, Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges’ First Army began an offensive thrust towards Duren and Cologne on the Rhine River, seeking to crack open the Siegfried Line by capturing Aachen. 

Encircling the city with Major Generals Charles Corlett's XIX Corps and J. Lawton Collins' VII Corps, Hodges assaulted the city’s northern defenses on 2 October, followed by an assault on the city’s southern flank on 8 October.  

Under orders that Aachen must be “held at all costs,” German defenders prepared to engage American forces in some of the most brutal urban combat of the war. 

After a thunderous American artillery and air bombardment, the U.S. attack on the city proper began on 12 October.

 American infantrymen advanced in bitter house-to-house and sewer-to-sewer fighting, using grenades and point-blank howitzer fire to obliterate German strongpoints. 

By 16 October 1st Infantry Division and 30th Infantry Division elements had isolated the last pockets of resistance, although die-hard enemy troops held out for five more days. 

By the time of Aachen’s formal surrender on 22 October, the First Army had suffered nearly 10,000 casualties.

The German commander, Colonel Gerhard Wilck, was quoted as saying, "When the Americans start using 155’s as sniper weapons, it is time to give up."